Montreal November 2025

2-3 November
Former federal minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada elected mayor of Montreal
(CTV) Montrealers have chosen Soraya Martinez Ferrada, a Chilean refugee who became a federal minister, as their new mayor in a vote for change that has unseated the city’s left-leaning government of the last eight years.
Martinez Ferrada, who leads the centrist party Ensemble Montréal, tapped into the dissatisfaction of many Montrealers with the government of outgoing Mayor Valérie Plante, who announced last year she would not seek a third mandate at the head of Projet Montréal. She has defeated Plante’s successor, Luc Rabouin, who said Sunday he would resign as leader of the progressive party.
Martinez Ferrada arrived in Canada as a Chilean child refugee in 1980, when her family fled the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. 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.
She has pledged to tackle homelessness, a major theme of the campaign, promising to triple the city’s budget for the unhoused, and to end the encampments that have cropped up across the island in the next four years. She has also promised to cut 1,000 city jobs and to increase the frequency of the subway system.
And she has taken aim at bike lanes — a key feature of Plante’s legacy that has sparked a backlash from some drivers and business owners — promising to launch an audit of the city’s bike paths in her first 100 days in office. She has suggested some may be removed.

14 November
Weekend STM shutdown called off as last-minute deal reached
Montrealers will have access to regular métro and bus service on the weekend schedule.
Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada celebrated the news in a social media post on X. She wrote: “I want to highlight the intensive negotiation work carried out by the drivers’ union and the STM in the last few hours to reach an agreement. As I have always said, the best agreements are those negotiated at the table.”

13 November
Soraya Martinez Ferrada calls for unity as she’s sworn in as Montreal’s new mayor
The Ensemble Montréal leader promises to govern for all Montrealers and tackle the homeless crisis head on
Hanes: A transfer of power unlike any other in Montreal’s history
As a new era of female leadership dawns at Montreal City Hall, Valérie Plante helped blaze the trail that brought her successor to office.

4-5 November
Federal budget ‘speaks to Quebec,’ Champagne says in Montreal
Finance minister starts his post-budget tour in the city, meeting with Quebec’s top business leaders.
Champagne said a major reason he chose Montreal as his first stop was to congratulate his “good friend” Soraya Martinez Ferrada, the newly elected mayor and former cabinet minister with the federal Liberal party.
“I’m very delighted,” he told reporters. “Great election here in Montreal.”
Champagne said he wanted to sit down with Martinez Ferrada and listen to her directly.
“There’s a lot in the budget for municipalities, and in particular for Montreal. So listening to her, congratulating her, and making sure she understands that as (a) federal government, we want to work very closely with municipalities — and obviously with her.”

Pratte: To fix Montreal, look beyond first 100 days of new regime
Mayor-elect Soraya Martinez Ferrada has ambitious plans. She will need time to deliver them.
Montreal’s new mayor, Soraya Martinez Ferrada, has set an ambitious program for her first 100 days in office, including: a “mayors’ table” to ensure better services across the city; measures to alleviate the homelessness and the housing crises; and an “optimization process” to make municipal public service more effective.
However, the issues the new Ensemble Montréal administration needs to address are far too complex to be solved in a few weeks or months.
To replace Valérie Plante, Montrealers chose a woman they don’t know very well but has significant political experience at the municipal and federal levels. Martinez Ferrada demonstrated her political skills by taking over Denis Coderre’s former party and transforming it into an effective election machine.
… Ensemble Montréal’s priorities, as highlighted in its platform, are the right ones: tackling the housing crisis; promoting safe and efficient transportation; improving cleanliness; strengthening public safety; reducing homelessness; and managing the city with rigour and efficiency. Addressing them will require intelligence, political courage and, most of all, the capacity to work with other like-minded cities and levels of government.