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“One of the strengths of Montreal is the fact that we have always appreciated the arts. We’ve got a passion for it that other cities don’t have at a very basic level. What is disturbing to me today is that perhaps the arts are not being supported like they used to be, and it is sadly one of the parts of the economic evolution that we’re going through. But theater, film, dance, art in virtually any one of its forms, is a cornerstone for society, because it makes people think, it evokes reactions, it evokes emotions, it gets people understanding life at a completely different level.

And because art in its various forms has been so important in Montreal, it has created a society that is always more appreciative at a truly, for lack of a better expression, artistic level. It’s not just about buying a painting that’s gonna be worth a lot in 20 years, it’s not about going to a play that is going to be on Broadway, it’s about going to see and going to hear things that are real and resonate.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“One of the aspects of Montreal that I find extraordinary is the artistic side of our city. From a very young age, I had the opportunity to experience les pièces de Michel Tremblay, but Michel Tremblay, as a lot of people don’t know, and he’s very low key about it, he’s also the author of the same plays in English. So he would write a brilliant piece in French, which I would go and see, and then he would write the same piece in English, that I would go and see. And so, what I was able to do was gain a much deeper appreciation of the French language from a contextual point of view. The power of Michel Tremblay is extraordinary, and should never be overlooked, he’s truly a great Montrealer.

There were other great Montrealers as well, Jean-Claude Poitras, a brilliant designer, and a very, very creative individual, and a really, really, really nice guy who I’ve had the opportunity of meeting on a number of occasions, just a solid, down to earth Montrealer.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“One of the advantages that I have is that I’ve lived in Montreal all my life, so I have had profound influences by extraordinary Montrealers. I can talk about Maurice Richard with reverence and respect, I can talk about Henri Richard with reverence and respect, I can talk about Guy Lafleur or Gary Carter, and that’s just sports, but I can also talk about one of the founding fathers of French theater in Montreal, Jean Duceppe, with reverence, brilliant man.

I can also talk about Michel Tremblay, probably one of the most powerful writers of our time, and sadly very overlooked. I think that one of the more iconic figures of today would be Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen has been around Montreal for a long time, and he’s left his mark everywhere. It is in his passing that we recognized his greatness. This man was a poet who wrote songs, who captured the sizzle and the essence of this city, perhaps like nobody else did. And it was overlooked for quite a number of years. Reflect on the words of the song Suzanne, and then go down to the clock tower and sit on that bench, and you’ll get the words.

My belief is that that richness is what is imbued in Montrealers today at various levels, at various ages, at various economic stages in their life, and that’s what gives us something that nobody else has.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“One of the things that attracts businesses to Montreal is the quality of life. Now, that can raise some eyebrows, because there are various aspects of Montreal that may not be that positive to certain people versus other people. You can always talk about the fact that our housing, as an example, on a relative basis, is less expensive. But the moment you evoke that kind of a discussion, it evolves quickly into yeah, but it’s getting really expensive.

Well, there’s a message there, first of all, one, come to Montreal, two, stay in Montreal, three, invest in Montreal and you’re gonna catch that wave. That is an inevitable part of how society evolves. If you’re not prepared to accept that and to understand that, I challenge you to go anywhere in the world where the same thing hasn’t happened, and you might not find the quality of life there so good.

What makes us different is the fact that we are conscious of that, and so we’re finding the juste equilibre between the two, and that’s very powerful stuff. So maybe our house prices are going up, they may never reach other levels for one reason or another, but that still doesn’t mean that we’re not gonna become an economic powerhouse, it just means we’re gonna become an economic powerhouse with a really cool understanding and base as to how we got here this time.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“Being a lifetime Montrealer, I have seen this city go through massive change. And it’s probably at a point now economically where it is moving towards its former greatness. I don’t think it is fair to delude anybody into thinking that Montreal is where it was 40 years ago, and I know, I was in Montreal 40 years ago. But I do say that it is very fair for the entrepreneurs and for the forward thinkers who recognize that Montreal is destined for greatness again, and that’s very cool, because we’re the only city in Canada who can say that we’re destined for greatness again.

And you see it in the massive amount of growth, both at a construction level, also infrastructure level, not withstanding the orange cones everywhere in the city of Montreal. You also see it with investments, with new businesses. The thing that a lot of people don’t recognize is that every time a new business comes to Montreal, and every time 800 jobs are added, or 200 jobs are added, that contributes massively to the economic development of this city.

And what I can see as an old time Montrealer is that we were there, we went through a bit of an economic setback, but as a result of that, we kinda cleaned the pipes a little bit. This time, our greatness will be based on a far greater diversity, a far broader base, which I think will bring a lot more long term stability.

40, 50 years ago, the greatness of Montreal was very narrowly focused, let’s be frank, it was. It should not have been that way, and thanks to some very courageous people, it evolved from that. Now it’s time to move on, and we’re moving on, and we’re moving on to greatness again.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“I think I have one of the most advantageous roles in the world, in the fact that I am a father of children in Montreal. As a result of being a dad of three girls in Montreal at various stages in their lives, I have been able to naturally afford them a diversity of experience, and an ethnic diversity that they could not possibly get with the same kind of openness as they could get anywhere else.

J’ai trois filles et mes deux filles qui ont toujours habitées à Montréal sont parfaitement bilingues beaucoup plus bilingue que moi. And when I’m communicating with my French clients today, thanks in large part to the tutelage of my daughters, I speak a lot of English and a lot of French. Alors je tombe de temps en temps dans le français juste parce que c’est plus naturelle pour évaluer un point de vue qui est nécessairement différent en français qu’en anglais.

But at the end of the day, that experience that I’m having with my clients started as a result of my ability to give that experience to my kids. They’re perfectly bilingual, in fact, one of them is perfectly trilingual, which is a source of tremendous pride for me.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“The conversation that I have with my clients will always be initially at a very general level. I can’t really go into too many details until I get to know an individual, and one of the ways I get to know an individual is to allow them to get to know me first. So I will talk about my values, but I’ll do so in a somewhat reserved manner, because when you talk about passionate things, when you talk about things that are as profoundly important as planning for your future in whatever disguise that may take, requires a lot of courage.

And what I have found over the years is that it is courageous people who make courageous decisions, those are the people who usually end up working with me. And I can say quite candidly that I do not have one single friend and client that isn’t courageous, because they’ve had those difficult conversations, and they’ve taken a step back and said wow, I’ve really gotta have a look at this stuff, and then they go one step further, because they recognize that what they’re doing is contributing or giving back, if you will, to the city and to the province and to the country that allowed them to flourish in the beginning, and people begin to realize that. So it becomes a statement without becoming a statement.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“The life insurance products and the group insurance products are important tools, but they’re human tools, and nobody, frankly, has the courage to talk about them in human terms. And what I do is bring that to the table, but I still do it driven by the passion and the context of the society that I live in. Montreal is different in that regard, so when you talk to somebody about anything relating to financial security planning, it’s such a fancy word, what a great phrase it is, but at the end of the day, it’s do you give a damn, or do you not give a damn? And in Montreal, people give a damn. That’s why we’re where we are today.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“I’ve been selling life insurance in the province of Quebec and in Montreal for 40 years, you know? I’ve done it with a lot of pride, I’ve done it with a lot of commitment, and I’ve done it with a lot of passion for the people in this city and this province, because I love where I live, and I’m here, I’ve always been here, I’ve never left here, and I have no intention of leaving. Those are things that I can relate to with the clients that I work with in every day life.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“When you look at the economic situation in Montreal in perspective as to where it has been and where it is now, the products and services that I put into place are basically life insurance products, and frankly, life insurance, ew, nobody likes to talk about life insurance. But in reality, what we’re doing is we’re touching families, whether it’s at a business level or a personal level, we’re getting to the heart of what matters most to these people, and that’s business continuity, family protection, but then the bigger picture is what happens to the surrounding economic infrastructure, if you will, if a business is saved, how many more people are really implicated by the fact that that business is saved?

That’s something that Montrealers get. They have a passion for it that is not cold and analytical and structured and very figure-driven, it’s very human, it’s very passionate, and that’s where I can connect with my clients at a completely different level, and it makes it extremely rewarding, it also makes it very inspirational. There’s nothing like talking to a like-minded individual, it really becomes fun, and the conversation always meanders just because of who I am and who they are, it almost becomes almost a love in in a way.

It’s a situation that has evolved over the years because there were difficult times in this province for very important and very justifiable reasons. But everyone’s moved on, but nobody’s forgotten. And I think that that is something that we all retain, but it’s allowed us to move on with strength and with confidence and with maturity and with understanding. It’s been a neat evolution, and I’ve been part of it, with a whole bunch of really cool people.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“It’s very interesting when you talk about how the Montreal and Quebec society has matured and is now at a stage where we’re embarking on far more exciting things, that diversity, if you will, has allowed me to become more creative, its allowed me to become more, to use a colloquial expression, out there, compared to what a lot of my other colleagues in my profession, in my metier do in this province. I’m not afraid of coming to a very important meeting wearing a pair of running shoes with no socks, as an example.

I believe that the personality that I am, and I believe that the beliefs that I have and the values that I have are reflected in the people that I’m doing business with. Those people that I’m doing business with have also consciously or unconsciously embraced the dynamism of our society, and the dynamism in consequence of our workplace, and the environment that we are flourishing in today. And no one can deny that we are flourishing in this city and this province today.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“What makes it so exciting to do business in Montreal is the fact that there’s a broad diversity of ideas, values, ethnicities, but there is something that makes Montreal very unique in that regard. So the challenges are not only to put together the hard and fast numbers aspect of financial security planning, but also to understand what makes a Montrealer’s heart beat, and what drives them to get up every morning to go to the office, what drives them every day to take their children to school.

There are certain things that we do in this city that are very different as a result of that, we think differently, we act differently, our priorities are very different, they’re very unique, we are truly a different brand of Canadian, it makes it much more exciting and much more inspirational to work with Montrealers.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“When you talk about the advancement of Montreal as a city economically, one of the things that differentiates us is that we are very broadly based in terms of the economic drivers. It’s always interesting to grab a headline with AI, it’s always interesting to grab a headline with biotech, whatever the particular industry may be, what’s really interesting is that there are an incredible diversity of industries both within Montreal and dans les banlieues.

So what you have is a broader base, and why they’re attracted to Montreal is for those things that make Montreal unique. We are an extraordinarily diverse city, we are extraordinarily open city for the most part, most of the time, but at the same time, we are business driven by entrepreneurs who understand the necessity to take risks. And you mix all that together, and you get a different kind of a structure, you get a different kind of a driver, you get a different kind of an engine that makes this city tick, and boy does it tick.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“I think one of the things that makes Montreal so great, I know one of the things that makes Montreal so great is the fact that if you come here with entrepreneurial drive and a spirit and a commitment to wanna get the job done, you can flourish probably better than in any other city in Canada, and the reason why I say probably better is because you’ve gotta work hard, just like you have to work hard anywhere else.

But the people that are successful here go beyond just working hard, they embrace the character of the city, they embrace the spirit of the people in this city, and they adapt accordingly. So the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well, it is extremely diverse, and it is growing and flourishing.

Along the way there’s growing pains, everybody has growing pains, it’s a part of life. But the things that are being done in this city, the annoying things like infrastructure, which is something that, since it hasn’t been taken of in about 150 years, is due.

But the truth is that the infrastructure that we’re building out now is going to create a massive economic base that is solid, long term, and sustainable at all levels. It’s not narrowly focused like it used to be.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.

“When you talk about building a business, you can talk about it at different levels. Why do people come to Montreal as opposed to other cities in Canada, or other cities in North America? It’s not just about the cost of doing business. I think that overall, the infrastructure in Montreal and in Quebec is set up so that small and medium businesses, les PME are supported. “When you talk about building a business, you can talk about it at different levels. Why do people come to Montreal as opposed to other cities in Canada, or other cities in North America? It’s not just about the cost of doing business. I think that overall, the infrastructure in Montreal and in Quebec is set up so that small and medium businesses, les PME are supported.

Of course, everyone can complain about anything at any time, but in the big picture, the reason why you come to Montreal is because of course you can make money, of course you can build a business, but you can also go to any one of 2,000 restaurants and have a great meal, you can experience that in a broad ethnic diversity, you can go an hour out of Montreal and be in the wilderness if you’re so inclined to be completely eaten by mosquitoes. You can do so many things in this city, it brings so much to the table, that maybe one or two or three or four or five percent profitability is worth it to get that kind of a quality of life.”

Victor Levee recently filmed this video with Make It Montreal, a storytelling platform geared towards Montreal’s business community and produced by local content strategy house Cat Around Films. The full set of clips can be found on Make It Montreal’s YouTube channel.