MONTREAL – In a vote for change, Montrealers have chosen Soraya Martinez Ferrada, a former federal Liberal minister, as the city’s new mayor.
With half of polling stations reporting results by 10 p.m. Sunday, the main television networks in Quebec projected Martinez Ferrada had defeated Projet Montréal Leader Luc Rabouin.
Martinez Ferrada, who leads the centrist party Ensemble Montréal, tapped into the dissatisfaction of many Montrealers after eight years under the left-leaning government of outgoing Mayor Valérie Plante, who announced last year she would not seek a third mandate as head of Projet Montréal.
Montreal’s new mayor has pledged to tackle homelessness and to audit the city’s bike paths, which have sparked a backlash from some drivers and business owners.
By 10 p.m., Martinez Ferrada had 44 per cent of the vote, leading Rabouin by nearly 17,000 ballots. Ensemble Montréal was leading in 41 of the 65 seats on Montreal’s municipal council, which includes the city mayor, 18 borough mayors and 46 city councillors. Projet Montréal was leading in just 19 seats.
Heading into the election, Projet Montréal held 36 seats, including the mayor, while Ensemble Montréal held 21 seats.
Homelessness and housing affordability were major themes during the campaign. Martinez Ferrada has given herself four years to end the homeless encampments that have cropped up across the island, though she says people will be allowed to stay in tent cities while she works to transition the occupants to housing. She says she will triple the city budget for homelessness.
Martinez Ferrada has also taken aim at the new bike lanes that are a key feature of Plante’s legacy. She has promised to launch an assessment of the city’s bike paths in her first 100 days in office, and has suggested that some may be removed.
She has also promised to cut 1,000 city jobs and to increase the frequency of the city’s subway system.
Martinez Ferrada arrived in Canada as a Chilean refugee in 1980, when she was eight years old. She was elected a Montreal city councillor between 2005 and 2009, and made the leap into federal politics in 2019. She was named to the cabinet of former prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2023, but resigned in February to seek the leadership of Ensemble Montréal.
Voter turnout in the hours before polls closed suggests many Montrealers felt uninspired by a lacklustre campaign. As of 4 p.m., Élections Montréal estimated turnout in the city at 27 per cent. Montreal saw a voter turnout of 38 per cent in 2021 — down from 42 per cent in 2017.
Local elections took place across Quebec’s roughly 1,100 municipalities in Quebec on Sunday. Radio-Canada has projected that incumbent mayor Bruno Marchand has been re-elected in Quebec City, easily defeating several challengers. He was first elected mayor in 2021. The broadcaster has also projected a victory for incumbent mayor Stéphane Boyer in Laval, Montreal’s largest suburb and the province’s third-largest city.
Another former federal Liberal minister, Marie-Claude Bibeau, has been elected mayor in Sherbrooke, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships region, according to Radio-Canada. And former Quebec minister Andrée Laforest was leading Saguenay, north of Quebec City, the broadcaster said.
Just over half of municipal candidates in the province ran unopposed this year. More than 4,500 candidates, including 564 mayors, have been elected via acclamation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 2, 2025.
