“Since we’re talking here about Montreal, and Montreal had a great role in who I became, and who I am today. Because, like I said, I come from a disadvantaged area, and this is an experience that really, that had a great impact in the way I see things, in the way I live, and the things I wanted to achieve.

So when I got here, well, my goal was really to better myself, to extract myself from the environment I was in. And that environment was quite violent, and that environment was quite inadequate when you want to develop your potential. Montreal was really, for me, a place where I felt that there was hope to contribute to a society. Cause where I come from, we were looked as a problem, as a minority. We were more the problem, I mean, we were more a problem than a solution.

Discovering Montreal, which was a complete, it was, I think it was a stroke of luck, actually. Because it never came to my mind to come here, but it happened. And discovering Montreal was really interesting, because I could see the way people were welcomed here. I could see also a lot of opportunities professionally. Because it seemed that, fourteen years ago, there was a lot of things that could be built, that there was a lot of things to do, actually. Montreal needed a lot of things, still needs now, but it was like a field of opportunities.”