Montreal held its municipal election on November 2, 2025 — part of the province-wide Quebec municipal election day — to choose a mayor, 18 borough mayors, and 46 city councillors across 65 council seats. Incumbent mayor Valérie Plante, who had led the city since 2017 under the Projet Montréal banner, announced on October 23, 2024 that she would not seek a third term, saying she could not guarantee Montrealers another mandate with the same level of energy after seven years in office. Turnout fell to 37.1%, with approximately 421,700 of the city's 1.14 million eligible voters casting ballots — the lowest participation rate since 2005 and the third-lowest since universal suffrage was introduced in Montreal in 1970.

Mayoral Race

Soraya Martinez Ferrada of Ensemble Montréal won the mayoralty with 178,442 votes (43.3%), defeating Projet Montréal's Luc Rabouin, who took 144,065 votes (35.0%). Gilbert Thibodeau of Action Montréal placed third with 41,819 votes (10.2%), followed by Craig Sauvé of Transition Montréal at 35,170 votes (8.5%) and Jean-François Kacou of Futur Montréal at roughly 8,700 votes (2.1%). Three independent candidates split the remainder.

The geographic pattern was stark. Martinez Ferrada carried thirteen of the city's nineteen boroughs in the mayoral vote, sweeping the outer suburbs and east end — Pierrefonds-Roxboro, Saint-Laurent, Montréal-Nord, Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles, Saint-Léonard, and LaSalle — while also making decisive inroads into central boroughs like Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, and Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Rabouin's support contracted to four dense, central neighbourhoods that had formed Projet Montréal's core since the party's founding: Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, Le Sud-Ouest, and Villeray—Saint-Michel—Parc-Extension. Verdun was essentially a tie, with Rabouin ahead by just 40 votes, while Ville-Marie was separated by 101 votes.

Mayoral Candidates

Soraya Martinez Ferrada was born on August 28, 1972 in Santiago, Chile. Her maternal grandfather René Ferrada had been a political organizer under Salvador Allende, and her family fled Chile after years of persecution under the Pinochet regime, arriving in Canada around 1979–1980 as political refugees, settling in Montreal's Saint-Michel neighbourhood. She earned a Master of Management from HEC Montréal in 2005. After working at Ernst & Young in fiscal consulting, she moved into community and environmental development, including a role at TOHU, a project combining circus arts, social engagement, and ecology. She entered federal politics in 2019, winning the riding of Hochelaga as a Liberal MP. Re-elected in 2021, she was appointed Minister of Tourism and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec in 2023, and served as Liberal Party national campaign co-chair. In February 2025, she resigned from cabinet to seek the leadership of Ensemble Montréal, which she won by acclamation on February 28.

Luc Rabouin studied psychosociology of communication at UQAM before completing a master's in political science at the Université de Montréal, where his thesis examined participatory budgets. He spent years in community development, directing the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre from 2006 to 2012 and later leading the Community Economic Development Corporation Centre-Sud/Plateau-Mont-Royal. He won a by-election in October 2019 with 67% of the vote to become borough mayor of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, and was appointed president of the City of Montreal's executive committee under Plante in November 2023. He won the Projet Montréal leadership on March 15, 2025, defeating four other candidates in the fourth round with 59.2% of the vote. His platform focused on housing affordability, homelessness, and express bus networks.

Gilbert Thibodeau, an entrepreneur who founded the management company Systèmes évolués de gestion Ordine in 1994, created Action Montréal in 2021 and ran for mayor that year, receiving just 4,327 votes (1.0%). He significantly improved in 2025, more than quadrupling his vote count while assembling a slate of 59 candidates. His platform centred on reducing the number of elected officials, increasing parking supply, and streamlining the municipal apparatus.

Craig Sauvé, a musician and community activist, had served as city councillor for Saint-Henri-Est—Petite-Bourgogne—Pointe-Saint-Charles—Griffintown in Le Sud-Ouest since 2013, originally under the Projet Montréal banner. He served as vice-president of the STM from 2017 to 2021 before leaving Projet Montréal in late 2021 and sitting as an independent. He launched Transition Montréal in July 2025, positioning it as a third path between the two major parties. His most distinctive proposal was rapid-transit bus corridors with eventual conversion to tram lines.

Jean-François Kacou had previously served as executive director of the City of Percé in the Gaspé region and was later hired as executive director of Ensemble Montréal itself, before being dismissed in late 2023. He became leader of Futur Montréal in August 2025.

Campaign Issues

Housing affordability dominated the campaign. All candidates acknowledged Montreal's housing crisis, though they differed sharply on remedies. Rabouin promised to make Montreal the most affordable metropolis on the continent. Martinez Ferrada pledged to repeal Projet Montréal's bylaw requiring developers to include social and affordable housing units, replacing it with financial incentives — a position that drew criticism from housing advocates but appealed to the development community.

Homelessness and tent encampments had proliferated across the city during Plante's second term. Martinez Ferrada's signature promise was to triple the city's homelessness budget and develop at least 2,000 transitional housing units, setting a four-year deadline to address encampments.

Bike lanes emerged as a surprisingly contentious proxy for broader dissatisfaction with Projet Montréal's governance. Plante had expanded the cycling network substantially, but business owners, seniors, and disability advocates complained about reduced parking and car access. Martinez Ferrada promised a 100-day review of the city's bike lane network, framing it as a commitment to consultation over imposition — a direct contrast to the Plante administration's approach.

The desire for change after eight years of Projet Montréal governance was the campaign's underlying current. Polls consistently showed a majority of Montrealers wanted new leadership. Martinez Ferrada ran under the slogan "Listen and Act," positioning herself as a listener in contrast to what critics described as Projet Montréal's top-down approach to urban transformation.

Council Results

Ensemble Montréal won 34 of 65 council seats — one more than the majority threshold — giving Martinez Ferrada a governing mandate. Projet Montréal fell from 36 seats to 25, with its representation contracting to the dense urban core. Allied local parties took the remaining seats: Équipe LaSalle won 3 seats under borough mayor Nancy Blanchet, and Équipe Anjou won 2 under incumbent borough mayor Luis Miranda. Ensemble Montréal did not run candidates in those boroughs, effectively cooperating with the local parties.

Among the 18 borough mayor races, Ensemble flipped several boroughs from Projet Montréal, including Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and Ahuntsic-Cartierville. Projet Montréal held its core boroughs: Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, where Cathy Wong won, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie under François Limoges, Le Sud-Ouest under Véronique Fournier, Verdun under Céline-Audrey Beauregard, and Villeray—Saint-Michel—Parc-Extension under Jean François Lalonde.

The closest race was in Lachine, where incumbent Projet Montréal borough mayor Maja Vodanovic lost by just 26 votes to Ensemble's Julie-Pascale Provost — a result later confirmed by judicial recount. In Parc-Extension, longtime councillor Mary Deros, who had served 27 years in office, lost her seat by just 6 votes. Ten judicial recounts were requested across various races citywide.

Notable Outcomes

The election ended Projet Montréal's eight-year hold on the mayoralty, a period that had begun with Valérie Plante's upset victory over Denis Coderre in 2017. It marked the first time Ensemble Montréal — the successor party to Coderre's Équipe Denis Coderre, which rebranded in January 2018 — held the mayor's office since Coderre's own tenure from 2013 to 2017. Rabouin took responsibility for the defeat and announced he would step down as Projet Montréal leader.

The result was widely interpreted as a rejection of Projet Montréal's approach to urban transformation rather than an enthusiastic endorsement of Ensemble's specific policies. The bike lane issue in particular served as a lightning rod for accumulated frustration among voters who felt the previous administration had prioritized ideology over consultation.