Mount Royal

Perched on the western slope of Montreal's namesake mountain, the riding of Mount Royal encompasses the City of Côte Saint-Luc, the Towns of Hampstead and Mount Royal, the neighbourhood of Snowdon, and the western portion of Côte-des-Neiges. With Pierre Elliott Trudeau among its past representatives, the riding had been a Liberal stronghold for generations—no Conservative had won here since 1935. The seat was vacated by longtime Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who had announced he would not seek re-election.

Candidates

Anthony Housefather (Liberal) — Housefather was serving as mayor of Côte Saint-Luc at the time he sought the Liberal nomination, a position he had held since 2005. A lawyer with degrees from McGill University and an MBA from Concordia University's John Molson School of Business, he had first entered municipal politics as a Hampstead town councillor in 1994. Under his leadership as mayor, Côte Saint-Luc built an eighteen-million-dollar Aquatic and Community Centre and launched the first composting program for single-family homes on the Island of Montreal.

Robert Libman (Conservative) — An architect by profession, Libman co-founded the Equality Party in 1988 to advocate for anglophone language rights and was elected to Quebec's National Assembly for D'Arcy-McGee in 1989. He later served as mayor of Côte Saint-Luc from 1998 to 2005, and as borough mayor of Côte Saint-Luc—Hampstead—Montreal West following the municipal mergers. He aimed to become the first Conservative to win Mount Royal in eighty years.

Mario Jacinto Rimbao (NDP) — Rimbao carried the NDP banner in a riding where the party had limited historical support, running against two well-known local political figures.

Jade Bossé Bélanger (Bloc Québécois) — Bossé Bélanger represented the Bloc Québécois in a riding where the sovereignty movement had never gained significant traction.

About the Riding

Mount Royal is one of Canada's most ethnically diverse ridings, with Côte-des-Neiges alone home to more than one hundred distinct ethnic communities. The riding has a large Jewish population and is significantly multilingual, with English, French, and dozens of other languages spoken across its neighbourhoods. Côte Saint-Luc and Hampstead are largely anglophone suburban municipalities that demerged from the City of Montreal in 2006, while the Town of Mount Royal is a planned garden community laid out in the early twentieth century by the Canadian Northern Railway. The neighbourhood of Côte-des-Neiges, home to the Université de Montréal, draws a large student and immigrant population. With a population exceeding 111,000, the riding's concerns in 2015 included affordable housing, immigrant settlement services, and the future of the riding's aging commercial districts. The contest between Housefather and Libman—two former mayors of the same city—drew considerable local attention.