Mathieu Grondin might have designed his ideal job, but he didn’t expect to be doing it in Ottawa. After years pushing for better nightlife governance in Montreal like more thoughtful licensing, pilot events, a policy on soundproofing, he now holds the title of Nightlife Commissioner in the city most Canadians associate with government offices and lights out by nine.
“Ottawa lives in the shadow of its two bigger siblings,” he says. “Toronto is like your older brother that has made a lot of money and is very successful. Then Montreal is like your sister with a fine art degree that sometimes has issues and doesn't show up at Christmas, but is also cool.”
But he’s recognised that being underestimated can be useful: “In mid-sized cities like Ottawa, everything is about development. So everyone is super optimistic, super supportive.”
Which is rather refreshing!
Post-COVID, Pre-Rebuild
This job isn’t happening in peaceful times either. It’s unfolding at the most fragile moment nightlife has faced in a generation.
“It's kind of like the worst time right now in my life, at least, to start developing and considering nightlife,” he says. “Because the nightlife sector globally has been facing challenge and crisis after crisis.”
“COVID hit, then we had a surge when we came back, lasted six months, and everything crashed down again.”
Mathieu lists inflation, affordability, cultural shifts and new generational norms as obstacles. “There's tariffs, changing consumer trends, the younger generation that don't drink, that don't socialize the same way if they socialize at all sometimes.”
But that makes the case for governance even stronger. “It's probably the most relevant time right now to start acting upon this ... We gotta act on this situation.”
Nightlife as Public Service
Mathieu also sees nightlife not as an indulgence, but as an under appreciated piece of infrastructure. While his role is very much about nightlife and culture, there’s also the knock on impact that serving for people having fun at night has benefits for people who work at night. They might be used to clocking off as the bars are wrapping up for the night.
Why shouldn’t these people benefit from things being open, or the likes of transit being open later, and some of the positives of a city that is going around the clock?
Mathieu adds: “People who work night time shifts pay the same amount of taxes as everybody else, but they don't have the same access to the institution infrastructure and amenities that day people get.” … “There must be space for everyone in the city,” he says, “not just necessarily nuclear families of middle class that have a nine to five work shift.”
It’s about access, fairness and belonging, as well as money. “Even for people who work daytime, like nine to five ... they amass wealth. But they also need time to spend that wealth.”
When Ottawa’s economic development team surveyed the tech sector in 2017, the findings were rather blunt in that offering jobs is one thing, but that’s never really enough to move to a city, let alone stay there, as we’ve discussed in previous episodes. Mathieu is very clear about this too. “The biggest problem they had was the retention of their workforce and attracting those talents ... They're going to look at, do you have good restaurants there? What times do the bars close? Is my favourite band going to ever perform there?”
From Advocate to Mechanic
Before joining City Hall, Mathieu was better known for founding Montréal 24/24 and turning nightlife advocacy into an organised movement. “We created a Nightlife council. We published two studies... and then we created the Nightlife Summit and we also had pilot projects.”
One of the most ambitious was a venue that stayed open for 29 hours straight with bar service the whole time. “We had like two or three-ish people who had a little bit too much to drink or they took other substances. That's the worst we had for like 29 hours ... when we closed down on the second night, we shut down at 3 a.m. So we kicked out 1,200 people at the same time. And then we had more problems on the street at that point.”
The next year, they ran it longer: “We're gonna go 36 hours... by then, you know, they just do their walk of shame to the metro or to the taxi and it's super smooth.”
That experience shaped how he sees nightlife regulation and how some of the biggest problems aren’t caused by nightlife itself, but by the way cities manage it. “You keep these adults under the supervision of the professional, you know, so it's kind of like a daycare for adults.”
Other cities have been examples of this too, Sydney experience more anti-behavioural behaviour with a very early last call for drinks. So people binged harder in the available hours, and the UK has been similar with last orders by 11pm. When there are staggered hours, or places are open around the clock like Berlin, the consumption of alcohol is smoothed and people behave more responsibly. So if we can do that, and provide the likes of transport, food and lodging then a whole new economy emerges.
After Montreal pulled the funding for Mathieu’s advocacy efforts, Ottawa stepped in. “Too bad Montreal, bye bye. I jumped in my car ... and ended up in Ottawa.”
Now that he’s inside the system, he describes his role differently, shifting from the advocacy movement to the bureaucracy machine. “You're still advocating, but you're advocating inside the administration ... I see myself a bit like a mechanic. I'm getting my hands dirty trying to fix the engine.”
Transit Is Safety
It’s often me bringing transit into conversations, so I like how Mathieu repeatedly mentioned its importance for nightlife without prompt. He sees public transit as nightlife infrastructure too, especially for safety. “Everyone understands that having public transit at night is not only a commodity, it's not only useful for people, it's not only good for the economy, it's a safety issue.”
“You don't want them to drive... You don't want them to walk and not feel safe.”
The challenge isn’t so much cultural, for transit types go out too, and if they had their way, then service wouldn’t ramp down so heavily after the office day is done, but these things need to figure out new funding models.
“People who work in public transit, they want to see public transit everywhere all the time. This is their passion ... The problem is the funding.”
Cities often treat nightlife as a nuisance to be managed rather than a civic asset to be nurtured. But a functioning nighttime economy doesn’t just bring in revenue or fill event listings, it changes how people experience the street after dark. Mathieu reinforces this: “Having a vibrant nightlife impacts not only the vibrancy of your community, but also the sense of safety on the street at night.”
The point is pretty clear that emptiness breeds fear. It’s not rowdy bars that make a place feel unsafe, more often it’s silence, shuttered storefronts and the absence of other people. A healthy night scene signals that the city is alive and welcoming, long after the sun goes down.
Sound and Friction
There’s often an assumption that cities must choose between nightlife and peace, between vibrancy and rest. Neither of us really buy that. Mathieu says: “People don't drink as much as they used to drink in the 80s and people would fight and they would be drunk and you don't really see that anymore.”
Noise complaints shouldn’t be inevitable either, but solvable, even if they are complex. “You need mediation program. You need sound and fair regulatory framework. You need funding program for soundproofing. You need a good zoning. You need proper licensing so that everyone knows what is their role and their responsibilities and what is the sandbox they can play in.”
But there is a problem with the current system, as I learned when Mathieu invited me to the Canada After Dark event he hosted as part of Capitol Music Week, basically a forum for Canadian cities to come together and discuss how to make cities work better for the nighttime economy. And for me, as a new transplant to Montreal I don’t think I’d realise quite how bad it could be for venues when development comes to their hood. This has been the case with condos coming to nearby established venues, but also for new things to open as part of new developments. Mathieu explains: “You open a venue or a bar and you might, you know, invest 200,000 in it and then you open it up on day one and you turn on the sound system and then boom, no, we're not gonna let you operate.”
That’s why he’s long supported the “agent of change” principle. “If I move next to your venue or bar and you were there before and you haven't changed anything, well it's up to me to adapt myself to my environment ... It's a two-way street.”
Losing the Middle Class of Culture
At that Canada After Dark even hosted in Ottawa, I heard a lot about Barrymore’s and Babylon, two beloved Ottawa venues, that when they closed during COVID it didn’t just leave a cultural void, but also a structural one. “We have a gap in Ottawa for around five to 600 capacity venues. We don't have that.”
And without those spaces, artists have nowhere to grow. “It's important for the development of our own talents and also to bring in certain types of bands that may not fill up 2,000 people in Ottawa, but will fill up a 500 capacity venue.”
It's not just an Ottawa issue either, we also heard of something similar way back in Series 1. “We're losing the middle class of culture in many ways,” Mathieu says. “Either you're going to get a 20 cent check or you're going to get a 20 million dollar check. But there's no more middle class there. And that's hurting the industry at large.”
Mid-Sized Cities Might Save Canada
Canada’s nightlife problem is perhaps as much psychological as much as it is down to the physical realm. There’s something weirdly conservative and puritanical that people don’t seem to like, but can also be proud of. Matthieu is onto this too as he emphasises how “Vancouver's nickname is No Fun City. And in Toronto, they call it Toronto the Good as opposed to Toronto the Fun. So Canada has a branding problem, an image problem when it comes to nightlife.”
He sees it even more starkly abroad. “When I travel around the world and I say I'm a Nightlife Advocate from Canada, I've had some chuckles from Germans who were like, ‘Canada? Don't you have just forests and polar bears there?’” This is something I can confirm hearing similar from other Europeans that can find much of Canada a bit boring at night, until they go to Montreal anyway.
One of the most surprising parts of the conversation was how interest in nightlife governance isn’t coming from the usual suspects. “What has been really surprising me is the level of interest in Canada right now coming from mid-sized cities. It's not the big cities that are driving this nightlife governance movement.” At Canada After Dark, he saw it firsthand. “We had Mississauga, Hamilton, London, Ontario, Kingston. .. When you have something and you start taking it for granted, well, that's a recipe for losing it.”
Also mostly noteworthy for many of these places being student cities too, that need to keep some of these young people after they graduate rather than have them for 4 years and leave.
Further afield, rather than some of the usual suspects, Mathieu points to Bristol as a global example, again, another student city, but also one with some serious regional investment in the economy that does more than most for challenging the London vortex. “The particularity is that this nightlife office is part of public health over there,” Mathieu notes, as many people in roles a bit like his can sit in various municipal functions, he’s in Economic Development, others might be in Tourism and Culture.
And closer to home? “I really like Hamilton, because it's got this grit... It's alternative, it's experimental... it's kind of like this black sheep vibe compared to Toronto the Good.”
Want To Make a Difference?
I ask Mathieu how people can help, and he’s clear he has no shortage of people offering to collaborate, but he wants them to show up prepared. “People love to reach out to me with their ideas. And I'm like, it's too easy to have an idea. I want a project.”
And when people ask what the nightlife commissioner is going to do, he flips the script: “People are like, okay, what are you going to do, commissioner? I'm like, well, what are you going to do? I'm there to help you.”
It makes me wonder how many great ideas exist out there, that need a little encouragement beyond that initial dreaming stage, so that someone can get them to become more practical, even when they are likely very imperfect. Creating these roles is fantastic, and they’re only really just getting started, but we need to keep feeding them with the fuel.
As always, we come to wrap up on the magic wand question and Mathieu doesn’t reach for more power or resources, but dreams of a little more empathy and curiosity from some of the political types to see what they’re missing out on from their world.
“I would love to be able to just take all the politicians out for a walk one night and make them walk the city at night. And then when it's like 1.30 in the morning and they want to pee and they can't find a bathroom and they have to pee in the park … well, they start understanding a little bit of what it is.”
Because maybe that’s what nightlife really is; not just music or beer or escape, but a mirror that shows us whether a city works for everyone, especially when the sun goes down.
To being Challengers.
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