Long-time politician and businessman Paul Lefebvre has announced he’s seeking a second term as mayor of Greater Sudbury, Ont. Lefebvre made the announcement Tuesday afternoon surrounded by friends and family at a sports bar in the city’s South End. “We’ve accomplished a lot in the last four years,” he said. “I was driving beside the old hospital, twice a day sometimes people said it can’t be done. It’s been three terms of council, and nothing is moving and certainly I said under my leadership with council support, we were able to move this thing forward and knock it down. It didn’t happen on its own, that’s about conversations and building trust within the community.“ Making reference to the new building that will be happening on the old hospital site, he said this is about the new housing that’s being created downtown. Greater Sudbury voters have a history of voting around major infrastructure projects that find difficulty moving forward on the council floor. The last election arguably centred around the location of an events centre. Lefebvre was asked what he felt this election in 2026 would be about. “It’s about continuing the amount of momentum that we’ve been building,” he said. “A record amount of housing, a record amount of jobs. Do we want the same leadership to continue down that path of growing our city in the right way, making it a place where our city can thrive and grow, where we can age in a friendly place, as well.” Downtown looks very different from his first day in office. Buildings have been demolished and major infrastructure projects have been undertaken, although they have yet to be finished. “It’s going to be a thriving place. We’re seeing the events centre, the cultural hub and a lot of private investments,” he said. “We’re actually seeing housing investments for the first time in a generation in our downtown and so we believe in our downtown but at the same time we can invest in our communities and we’re doing that as well. But certainly, a thriving downtown, a healthy downtown, there’s a really vibrant place that everybody wants to live in and that we can be proud of, which was not the case four years ago, that’s what we’re seeing and that’s what we’re trying to build." Two other candidates have declared their intention to run for the mayor’s seat in Sudbury. Poverty activist Bob Johnston has registered to run for the top job. Johnston ran for the mayor’s seat in 2022 and ran as a councillor for Ward 1 in 2018. Ward 11 Councillor Bill Leduc has announced he is also running for mayor. Leduc was first elected to council in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. It’s still unclear whether his election violations case, which has been delayed until one month before the 2026 vote, will impact his ability run.
