In April 2026, in Montreal, a man parks on the side of a street, takes out a shovel, opens a bag of asphalt bought with his own money, fills a pothole, films the sequence, then gets back into his truck and leaves for another street where another hole is waiting.
He does it again the next day, then the one after, and the images circulate on Instagram and TikTok, citizens send him addresses all over the island, he moves, he repairs, he leaves, he films, he does it again elsewhere, always on holes that were there the day before and that will still be there if no one stops.
He spends about one hundred and fifty dollars per day, then at some point he no longer pays alone, a fundraiser is opened on GoFundMe under the name “We fix Montreal, join the movement!”, it exceeds twenty-seven thousand dollars, six hundred twenty-three people give, the money pays for the asphalt, the diesel, the equipment, and the same gesture continues, in the same place, on the same streets.
The streets are already paid for and the holes are still there.
Under a post, the mayor of Montreal, Soraya Martinez Ferrada, writes that it is not up to him to do this work, and the sentence adds itself to the rest while the same holes are still there the next day.
The streets are already paid for by taxes, the elected officials are also paid by taxes, the holes are therefore just as much, and citizens take from their own savings to pay a second time for what is already paid for, by coming themselves to fill the holes.
And it is still not up to them to do it.
