Montrealers are preparing to vote for their new mayor on Sunday, November 2. With Valérie Plante stepping down from running for a third term, all eligible voters will now be able to elect a new mayor for the first time since the 2017 election. In addition to the mayoral race, the upcoming municipal elections is also an opportunity to vote for city councillors to represent Montrealers in local legislation.
But who are this year’s candidates, and what campaign promises are they running on?
There is a marked distinction between the realms of what the province is responsible for, and those that the municipalities are in charge of. While Quebec deals with issues such as health care, education, or immigration, municipalities provide Montrealers with basic services, including snow removal, road maintenance, or water provision to residents. As a result, these candidates have focused their promised policy agendas on issues such as public transit, unhoused populations, cleanliness, and culture/recreation.
This Sunday, voters should expect to see five main candidates on the ballot: Luc Rabouin from Projet Montréal, Soraya Martinez Ferrada from Ensemble Montréal, Craig Sauvé from Transition Montréal, Gilbert Thibodeau from Action Montréal, and Jean-François Kacou from Futur Montréal.
Of the city’s main issues, Montrealers are most concerned with the cost of living, homelessness, and transportation around the city. Let’s look at how each candidate fares on these three policy areas.
Luc Rabouin
Coming from incumbent Valérie Plante’s party, Luc Rabouin came out in the lead in Projet Montréal’s leadership race this past March to become the new party leader. He has held political office for five years, which began after his victory as the elected borough mayor of Plateau-Mont-Royal in 2019.
Rabouin’s push to run his campaign on the homelessness crisis and affordable housing in the city is what ultimately led to his victory in becoming party leader for Projet Montréal this year. He claims to be driven by a wide array of issues including environmental policy, urban planning, and participatory democracy.
Cost of Living
When it comes to affordable housing and the cost of living, many Montrealers feel skeptical of the possibility for change under another Projet Montréal term. Since 2018, housing has become increasingly inaccessible, with the average cost of rent almost 120 per cent higher than when Plante took office in 2018. In that same time period, the number of unhoused people has also increased by 10 per cent each year.
Rabouin claims that his office will bring affordability back to Montreal. He intends to launch a $100 million fund that would support nonprofits in building out socialized housing which would replace Plante’s 20-20-20 affordable housing bylaw that mandated all new residential developments to designate at least 20 per cent of units as social housing, 20 per cent as affordable housing, and 20 per cent as family housing. This bylaw, which was adopted in 2021, was unable to fulfill its goal of creating more affordable housing due to its lack of enforcement, and had also eased some of its requirements for new development projects. Rabouin’s focus has been on incentivizing property owners to allocate more of their lands into housing, as well as forcing landlords to keep their properties on the market through a tax on unoccupied housing. For low-income homeowners and elderly residents, his plan will also include a property-tax deferral program.
Unhoused Crisis
The homelessness crisis was presented as one of Projet Montréal key agendas, as revealed in the party’s electoral platform released earlier this month. Rabouin pledges to eliminate homelessness in Montreal by 2030 by doubling the funding granted to organizations that work with unhoused populations. He also proposed to add 1,000 total social and transitional housing units, 500 of which would be modular units, which are smaller scale forms of transitional housing that are quicker and cheaper to construct.
Public Transit
Furthermore, as the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) prepares for another strike to be held next month, public transit has risen as another key area of concern for Montrealers. Rabouin has announced his plans for an “efficient bus network” system called the Réseau express bus that would implement a reserved bus lane and operate 24/7. Additionally, his campaign supports the construction of three new tram lines that are already under development, including the east-end tramway project, increasing the frequency of the Metro during rush hour, and making all Metro stations universally accessible.
Soraya Martinez Ferrada
Soraya Martinez Ferrada is a former Liberal Member of Parliament for Hochelaga and former Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, ending her tenure in early 2025 to lead Ensemble Montréal. Having begun her political career in 2005 as a Montreal City Councillor for Saint-Michel, she has twenty years of experience within the Quebec political scene.
Martinez Ferrada is currently polling ahead of the other mayoral candidates for Montrealers’ top pick, according to a Segma Research for Radio-Canada poll conducted on Thursday, October 16. She is currently the candidate with the most voter support at 26 per cent, compared to Rabouin who is at 18 per cent. Although her platform is largely centered on housing-related issues, giving herself the title la mairesse du logement, or “the mayor of housing,” her reputation among Montrealers took a hit this May after having violated Quebec law by illegally collecting a security deposit from one of her renting tenants.
Cost of Living
In order to tackle the lack of affordable housing and the rising cost of living, Martinez Ferrada claims she will invest $1 million in community organization and housing initiatives, such as La Maison du Père, a rent assistance bank in Montreal. She has also pushed forward a housing bank initiative that would reserve affordable housing units on the market with the intention of transferring the leases to those without housing on July 1, which is when most leases in Montreal begin. In tension with her history as a landlord, as well as her connections with the landlord lobbyist group CORPIQ, she states that her party is committed to protecting renters’ rights and aims to establish a municipal rental registry. In addition to these larger projects, her campaign is also running on assisting first-time homeowners with buying property by granting them tax breaks as well as loans.
Unhoused Crisis
Under the wing of Martinez Ferrada, Ensemble Montréal seeks to establish a Tactical Homelessness Intervention Group that will approach the unhoused crisis in the city as a long-term goal. The party looks to work with the Montreal municipal police, Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, to create public safety committees alongside citizens, community organizers, and borough representatives.
Within her first 100 days, Martinez Ferrada announced plans for a protocol to manage homeless encampments that would be developed with community organizations, with the promise of ending encampments in the city within the next four years. She also intends to increase the city’s annual budget that addresses homelessness to $30 million, with a $10 million matching fund in the private sector to attract contributions that would fund homelessness initiatives.
Public Transit
One of Ensemble Montréal’s key policy platforms is to promote safe and efficient transportation. They have focused their energy on making the Metro system more efficient, specifically transways on the eastern side of Montreal. The party has stated that it plans to increase the frequency of Metro services as well as “improve the comfort, speed, and safety of users,” which local transportation planning experts have found to be a large undertaking. In addition, Martinez Ferrada claims she wants to reduce the STM’s “unnecessary spending.”
With regards to active transit, Martinez Ferrada had been headstrong on the biking front, committing to launch an audit of Montreal’s bike path network in her first 100 days. She is looking to secure safe bike paths by allocating funds to bring most routes “up to standard,” while eliminating ones that are found to be potentially dangerous.
Craig Sauvé
Transition Montréal’s mission is vastly different from both Ensemble Montréal and Projet Montréal. Led and founded by Craig Sauvé, former city councillor for Projet Montréal and now vice-chair of the STM’s Board of Directors, this party is attempting “to offer [Montrealers] a new voice: a constructive voice, a voice that focuses on collaboration and good ideas.”
The party is strongly rooted in its progressive vision, proposing a divestment plan from the genocide in Palestine and the war in Ukraine. Sauvé’s platform is ambitious in reenvisioning transit for Montrealers, implementing municipal electoral reforms, establishing safer school environments, offering social transit fares for low-income residents, and imposing higher property taxes on Montreal’s ultra-wealthy landowners.
Sauvé has caught the attention of many young progressives in the city with his radical approach to public transportation, even denouncing Quebec’s ban on gender-neutral language in provincial communications, which other candidates have yet to do. Major concerns about Transition Montréal surround the party’s ability to follow through with the strong claims they have campaigned on.
Cost of Living
Sauvé has campaigned on a progressive housing policy that is geared towards improving tenant conditions within the city. Transition Montréal is looking to establish Bâtir Montréal, a paramunicipal body that will oversee the construction of public and community housing alongside local non-profit to develop a $10 million rental assistance bank with a public rent registry. He aims to make the process of receiving assistance more efficient by creating a “one-stop housing portal” to centralize permitting applications, as well as simplify the permits co-operates and non-profits apply for. Additionally, Sauvé intends on taxing the city’s ultra-wealthy by subjecting single-family properties valued at over $3.5 million to 1.25 times the standard tax rate.
Unhoused Crisis
At a debate on October 9, Sauvé announced that he would declare a state of emergency to allow unhoused people to move into vacant buildings and hotels as sources of temporary shelter. With regards to homeless encampments, he noted explicitly his plans to ban police interventions on encampments and replace them with community initiatives led by a team of social workers and outreach staff. Longer-term efforts consist in establishing a detailed plan for how to approach encampments with more than 10 tents, consulting with local and unhoused populations on decisions regarding those encampments. Transition Montréal estimates allocating a total of $20 million annually to combat homelessness.
Public Transit
Public transpiration is one of Transition Montréal’s key priorities. The party proposes extending the orange and green Metro lines to the Bois-Franc REM station and to LaSalle and Lachine, respectively. This is a part of Sauvé’s vision to restructure the Grand Sud-Ouest. They have also proposed the “social fare system” that would make public transit more affordable for low-income residents, giving those with an adjusted annual income of under $47,500 the reduced monthly fare of $62.75. For transit infrastructure, Transition Montréal is looking to invest in rapid bus corridors and create reserved lanes on routes where light-rail network rails are planned to be built. Furthermore, they hope to establish a kilometre-based tax on vehicles, with tax revenue going towards maintaining roads and developing more extensive public transit systems.
Gilbert Thibodeau
Gilbert Thibodeau, the founder of his party Action Montréal, is running again in this year’s municipal elections after having received less than 1 per cent of the vote during the 2021 election cycle. Thibodeau’s platform leans center-right, with his proposed agenda aiming to reduce the number of elected officials in Montreal, increase surveillance efforts among Montreal police, and eliminate a number of bike paths and Bixi stations to clear up street spaces.
Cost of Living
To address the increased cost of living, Action Montréal aims to support social economy organizations such as the Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant, the Fédération des coopératives de Montréal, and the Société de développement Angus in providing affordable housing. The party has claimed they are opposed to rent registries, and intend to respond to the housing crisis through strengthening rent transparency, protecting tenants against renovations, encouraging tenant autonomy, and facilitating cooperating and non-profit initiatives.
Unhoused Crisis
Action Montréal recognizes the severity of the unhoused crisis and aims to utilize civil society organizations, such as churches and mosques, to provide these populations with temporary housing. To address the current crisis, Action Montréal’s platform states that the party will introduce “transitional centres” in the next two years. These are described as secure hubs located in 80 vacant Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal buildings that would provide key health and sanitary services for “three profiles: people facing economic hardship, those with addictions, or those with mental health challenges.” With the help of social workers, the party additionally states that they will offer personalized rehabilitation programs for individuals belonging to these profiles. In terms of mitigation efforts, Action Montréal plans to provide rent assistance and at-risk youth programs.
Public Transit
Thibodeau has been vocal about reducing the number of bike lanes in the city in order to promote and protect drivers. In order to achieve this, he has proposed the removal of Bixi rental stations between December 1 and March 15. Action Montréal also plans to make car parking more accessible through the implementation of price caps on parking meters at $2 per hour, with free marking meters from Fridays at 9:00 AM to Mondays at 9:00 AM.
Jean-François Kacou
Futur Montréal is the newest centrist party in the running, founded just this year, with the goal of “doing politics differently, with bold ideas, pragmatic solutions and leadership rooted in fairness, accountability and inclusion.” Jean-François Kacou has an extensive political background, having served as the executive director of Ensemble Montréal and as an elected member of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. Futur Montréal unveiled its party platform on October 23, with key policy areas including tackling the unhoused crisis, securing public transportation, and bringing affordable housing to Montrealers.
Cost of Living
Futur Montreal is looking to levy on luxury housing, moving subsequent tax revenue into a transparent fund dedicated for building social housing. The party have been strongly opposed to the current 20-20-20 bylaw and instead wants to focus on converting underused spaces into rent-controlled student housing zones.
Unhoused Crisis
Futur Montréal’s platform outlines plans to create a Social Intervention Service (SIS) which would unite over 60 organizations already active in addressing the unhoused crisis. The SIS’s projects would include a pilot project that would convert vacant industrial buildings that would temporarily provide immediate shelter for the city’s unhoused population. It would additionally provide relocation assistance and transportation for unhoused populations.
Public Transit
Jean-François Kacou has placed a heavy emphasis on the increased accessibility of bus networks. In an interview with CBC, the Futur Montréal leader stated that he “wants Montreal to have the best bus network in the world.” Acknowledging the cost efficient price of public transport in Montreal, the Futur Montréal platform states that the party aims to introduce a four year public transit fare freeze and increase the efficiency of the city’s bus network with a proposed frequency of buses every 15 minutes, seven days a week. In relation to cycling networks, Futur Montréal plans on suspending the construction of new bike lanes along commercial arteries, residential streets, and parks to improve safety. The party has made it their objective to improve the security of existing bike lanes and to implement a safe and monitored overnight bicycle storage.