Montreal voters went to the polls on November 7, 2021 to decide the city's mayor, 18 borough mayors, and 46 city councillors. The race was held just seven weeks after the September 20 federal election, and in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic — two factors widely blamed for the low turnout of approximately 37.5%, down from 42.5% in 2017. Advance poll participation, however, rose to 9.3% from 6.5% four years earlier, reflecting pandemic-era preferences for early voting. Mayor Valérie Plante, who had become the first woman to lead Montreal when she upset Denis Coderre in 2017, sought a second term against nine challengers.

Mayoral Race

Plante won decisively with 217,986 votes (52.1%), expanding her margin over Coderre — who returned for a rematch under the Ensemble Montréal banner — from roughly five points in 2017 to more than fourteen. Coderre took 158,751 votes (38.0%), while Balarama Holness of Mouvement Montréal finished third with 30,235 votes (7.2%). Gilbert Thibodeau of Action Montréal received 4,327 votes (1.0%), and five independent candidates and Beverly Bernardo split the remaining ballots.

The geographic divide followed familiar lines. Plante dominated the dense francophone urban core — Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, Le Sud-Ouest, Villeray—Saint-Michel—Parc-Extension, Verdun, and Ville-Marie — while making significant inroads in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, where most polling stations flipped from Coderre compared to 2017. Coderre retained his base in the outer boroughs with larger anglophone and allophone populations: Montréal-Nord, Saint-Léonard, Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles, Saint-Laurent, and Pierrefonds-Roxboro. The language debate — particularly Holness's proposal to declare Montreal officially bilingual — appeared to consolidate francophone voters behind Plante.

Mayoral Candidates

Valérie Plante was born on June 14, 1974 in Rouyn-Noranda, a mining city in Quebec's Abitibi-Témiscamingue region. She earned a BA in anthropology and a degree in museology from the Université de Montréal before working for non-profit organizations, including a stint as communications director for the Girls Action Foundation. First elected to city council in 2013 as the Projet Montréal councillor for Sainte-Marie district, she won the party leadership in December 2016 with 51.9% against Guillaume Lavoie, then defeated Coderre the following November. Her first term was defined by the launch of the Réseau express vélo (REV), a network of protected cycling lanes including a prominent installation on Saint-Denis Street. She also pushed for the Pink Line metro extension from Montréal-Nord to Lachine, though the project failed to secure provincial or federal funding. Her 2021 platform promised 60,000 affordable housing units over ten years, a $110-million public security plan, 300 new STM buses, and a fully electric bus fleet by 2025.

Denis Coderre was born on July 25, 1963 in Joliette, Quebec, and moved to Montréal-Nord as a child. He earned a BA in political science from the Université de Montréal and an MBA from the University of Ottawa. Coderre served as Liberal MP for the riding of Bourassa from 1997 to 2013, holding cabinet posts including Minister of Citizenship and Immigration under Prime Minister Chrétien. He resigned his federal seat in June 2013 to run for Montreal mayor, winning that November with 32% of the vote in a field fractured by the aftermath of the Charbonneau Commission corruption inquiry. As mayor, he presided over the unveiling of the REM light-metro project with the Caisse de dépôt in 2016. After losing to Plante in 2017, Coderre underwent a dramatic personal transformation — losing 127 pounds through boxing and lifestyle changes — and published a political essay, "Retrouver Montréal," in March 2021 before officially announcing his comeback. His 2021 campaign centred on public safety: he promised 250 additional police officers, opposed any defunding or disarming of police, and pledged to remove portions of the REV bike network on Bellechasse Avenue.

Balarama Holness was born on July 20, 1983 in Montreal to a Québécoise mother and Jamaican father. A former CFL player, he signed with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2008 and won a Grey Cup with the Montreal Alouettes in 2010 before pursuing studies at McGill University, where he earned both civil and common law degrees. He founded Montreal in Action, a social justice organization that collected 20,000 signatures urging the city to hold consultations on systemic racism in municipal institutions — consultations that resulted in a report finding the city had turned a "blind eye" to discrimination. After an unsuccessful run for borough mayor of Montréal-Nord with Projet Montréal in 2017, Holness launched his own party and merged it with Ralliement pour Montréal in September 2021. His most consequential policy proposal was to declare Montreal officially bilingual, a stance that proved explosive in Quebec's charged linguistic environment and likely consolidated francophone voters against him. Mouvement Montréal failed to elect a single candidate at any level.

Gilbert Thibodeau campaigned for mayor under the newly created Action Montréal banner, fielding 22 candidates. An entrepreneur who founded the computer services company Systèmes évolués de gestion Ordine in 1994, Thibodeau campaigned on reducing the number of elected officials and expanding parking downtown.

Campaign Issues

Rising gun violence was the campaign's most heated subject. A surge in shootings during 2020 and 2021 pushed public safety to the forefront, with Coderre making it the centrepiece of his pitch, declaring that Montreal was no longer safe. Plante countered with a plan that combined prevention, social intervention, and policing resources, while Holness focused on addressing root causes such as poverty and systemic racism.

Housing affordability was mounting as a concern, with both major candidates proposing ambitious construction targets — Plante's 60,000 affordable units over a decade versus Coderre's 50,000 new units in a single mandate — alongside measures like rent registries and landlord accountability mechanisms. The issue would only intensify after the election.

The Réseau express vélo divided opinion. Plante defended the protected bike lanes as essential urban infrastructure and promised expansion, while Coderre cast portions of the network as poorly executed disruptions to traffic and commerce, pledging to remove the Bellechasse segment.

Language emerged as an unexpected fault line after Holness proposed officially recognizing Montreal as bilingual. With the provincial government advancing Bill 96 to strengthen the French language charter, the proposal alienated francophone voters and drew sharp criticism from commentators who accused Holness of misreading Quebec's political landscape. Plante, who was the only major candidate to vocally champion the protection of French, appeared to benefit most from the backlash.

Council Results

Projet Montréal won 36 of 65 council seats, securing a comfortable governing majority without needing coalition partners. Ensemble Montréal took 23 seats, while allied local parties — Équipe Anjou and Équipe LaSalle — held their traditional seats.

Among borough mayor races, Projet Montréal took full control of four boroughs: Lachine under Maja Vodanovic, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal under Luc Rabouin, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie under François Limoges, and Le Sud-Ouest under Benoit Dorais. Ensemble Montréal held its suburban base outright in Montréal-Nord, Pierrefonds-Roxboro, Saint-Laurent, and Saint-Léonard. The remaining boroughs saw split councils, with the borough mayor from one party and councillors from both.

The tightest borough mayor race was in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, where Projet Montréal's Gracia Kasoki Katahwa prevailed by 161 votes after a judicial recount. In Villeray—Saint-Michel—Parc-Extension, Laurence Lavigne Lalonde won the borough mayorship for Projet Montréal, unseating the incumbent.

Notable Outcomes

Plante's re-election confirmed that her 2017 victory was no fluke — the expanded margin suggested a durable shift in the city's political centre of gravity. She interpreted the mandate as an endorsement of her ecological transformation agenda, particularly the cycling infrastructure and transit electrification she had championed.

Codeerre, defeated by an even wider margin in the rematch, resigned as Ensemble Montréal leader five days after the vote and stepped away from municipal politics after more than three decades in public life. The party would subsequently search for new leadership before eventually settling on Soraya Martinez Ferrada for the 2025 cycle.

The election also underscored an emerging geographic cleavage: a francophone, progressive urban core increasingly aligned with Projet Montréal, and anglophone and allophone outer boroughs loyal to Ensemble. This divide, already visible in 2017, hardened in 2021 and would persist into 2025.