Michael Mark Applebaum (born February 10, 1963) is a former Canadian politician who served as interim mayor of Montreal between his appointment by the city council on November 16, 2012, and his resignation on June 18, 2013.

He was appointed interim mayor by the city council after leaving the party as increased scrutiny of corruption within the administration prompted Tremblay's resignation.

[1][3] He studied commerce at Dawson College CEGEP, dropping out because he lost patience with a business teacher who regularly arrived late for class.

[1][6] Later that year, he was elected city councillor by a margin of 31 votes in the former Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal as a member of Jérôme Choquette's Parti des Montréalais.

[10][11] In 1998, he was re-elected by a large margin as a member of Nouveau Montréal, an opposition slate headed by former Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau.

[1][6] As a councillor, he relinquished his businesses and became a real estate agent at the Royal LePage realty firm to supplemented his low public salary.

"[1] In 2001, Applebaum joined other city councillors in forming the Union Montreal party under mayoral candidate Gérald Tremblay, a businessman and former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister.

[12] Fellow councillors Jeremy Searle and Francine Senécal publicly criticized Applebaum in 2005 and 2008 for a potential conflict of interest over his continued work as a real estate agent and property manager while also sitting on the borough's secretive CCU (zoning committee).

[3] Allmand, formerly both the member of Parliament for NDG and Solicitor General of Canada, decried the lack of transparency in borough rezoning procedures.

[14] Applebaum found himself at odds with community groups over a number of public works projects in Benny Park in the underserved Loyola district of the borough.

[15][16] In 2009, construction on the sports center began and plans for an ultra-modern library in the same park announced, further angering residents concerned about Green Space.

Applebaum explained delays by the city's careful review of technical documents to ensure that bids for the project do not come in higher than expected.

Applebaum also alienated community groups looking to revitalize the Empress Theatre, a heritage site owned by the borough and sitting unused since a 1992 fire.

[31][32] Applebaum's crimes were part of a nexus of corruption involving bid-rigging for municipal contracts by large construction firms (some with links to the Mafia) in Montreal-area cities in exchange for bribes and kickbacks.

Major players included Tony Accurso, owner of Simard-Beaudry Construction in Montreal, who paid for vacations of municipal officials on his giant yacht.

[37] By 2006, Applebaum was instructing his newly hired aide Hugo Tremblay to sell tickets to Union Montreal party cocktail fundraisers to promoters seeking zoning changes for their real estate projects.

[11][9][10] Applebaum became the second most powerful person in Montreal on April 6, 2011, when he was promoted by Tremblay to chair of the executive committee and given control over the city's finances.

[1][10][42] He replaced Claude Dauphin who resigned over allegations of spying on top bureaucrats as Tremblay's government faced increased scrutiny for corruption.

[6] His other responsibilities included urban planning and buildings, borough relations, human resources, administrative services, and corporate communications.

[43] Applebaum shrugged off the administration's problems as media exaggerations and set a financial goal of cutting the city budget of $4.5 billion by $170 million and holding tax increases to the rate of inflation.

[44] Following Tremblay's resignation on November 5, 2012, Applebaum was believed to be a strong contender to win Union Montréal's nomination as its new mayoral candidate.

[45][46] An anonymous colleague told reporters that Applebaum's candidacy had been rejected because his French language skills were not strong enough to be mayor of an 80 percent francophone city.

In his acceptance speech, Applebaum promised to "erase this stain on our city" caused by the corruption of the outgoing Tremblay administration.

The event was at the La Cantina restaurant on upper St. Laurent Blvd., which was frequented by members of the Rizzuto crime family, and owned by Federico Del Peschio, who was gunned down in the establishment’s parking lot later in 2009.

Le Devoir also identified one builder as Tony Magi, a developer with links to the Rizzuto crime family who had built a condo project on Upper Lachine Rd.

The original project required zoning changes opposed by the borough, with a modified version built with $3.4 million in subsidies from the city government.

[64][65][66] The Charbonneau Commission had police-taped recordings capturing a 2003 conversation between Vito Rizzuto, then head of the Montreal Mafia, attempting to broker a deal between Lalli and Magi, with the help of coucillor Saulie Zajdel to change the zoning.

[67] Lalli would eventually flip the land to build a seniors residence and pharmacy; he would also successfully sue Radio-Canada for defamation for linking him to the mafia.

[75] According to an arrest warrant filed in court, Applebaum allegedly engaged in two separate criminal conspiracies, the nature of which officials did not initially disclose.

However, Radio-Canada reported that they involve the demolition of a residential building and the construction of condominiums, and link Applebaum to a Laval-based engineering firm central to the municipal corruption testimony being heard at the Charbonneau commission.