After eight years under Valérie Plante and her party Projet Montréal, Montrealers voted in favour of change.
Soraya Martinez Ferrada, who stepped down from her post as a federal cabinet minister to run for mayor, was projected to win with 43 per cent of the vote.
She beat out Luc Rabouin, Plante’s successor, by eight per cent.
Her party won over several boroughs from Projet and appeared poised to take a majority of seats at city council.
“Tonight, Montreal sent a clear message — we need change,” Martinez-Ferrada said in her victory speech.
It was a convincing win for Martinez Ferrada, who arrived in Montreal at age eight when her family fled the Pinochet regime in Chile.
She ran a steady campaign with the slogan “Listen and Act” — a clear jab at Plante’s reputation among her critics for pushing ahead with a progressive agenda on initiatives such as bike paths.
One of Martinez Ferrada’s first promises, back in August, was to conduct an audit of the city’s cycling network, which was expanded under Plante, and eliminate any found to be dangerous.
She also promised, within 100 days of taking office, to conduct an inventory of construction sites to improve traffic flow, reform the city’s approach to affordable housing and boost funding to help deal with homelessness.
But fixing Montreal’s biggest problems could be easier said than done.
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Montreal is facing a housing crisis, a financially strapped public transit system and growing complaints about traffic on the roads.
These issues were also a priority for Plante when she was elected eight years ago.
She was unable to solve them, and near the end of her time in office lamented that the provincial and federal governments couldn’t do more to help.
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“The major issues in this campaign — issues like housing and homelessness — cannot be tackled only by the municipal government,” Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University, told CBC News.
“These are complex issues and municipalities have limited powers.”
Both the provincial and the federal governments have challenges of their own.
In Quebec City, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government is dealing with its own crises and is only 11 months away from a provincial election, with polls showing them trailing well behind the Parti Québécois.
Justine McIntyre, a former city councillor and political analyst, said the relationship between Plante’s administration and the CAQ had been strained.
“It will be an opportunity for a reset,” she said.
In Ottawa, as well, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals are set to table a budget on Tuesday and will need to work with other federal parties to get it across the finish line.
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During the campaign, Martinez Ferrada criticized Projet for failing to develop good relationships with their government counterparts in Quebec City and Ottawa.
She said she would use her skills honed as a cabinet minister to do better.
Martinez Ferrada will also face a challenge as she seeks to follow through on her promise to listen to Montrealers.
Only 36 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in Sunday’s election, down from 38 per cent four years ago.
And many of those aren’t likely to share her views on issues like bike paths. Rabouin and Craig Sauvé, a first-time mayoral candidate, both ran on promises to continue to strengthen the cycling network and together secured roughly 44 per cent of the vote.
In her victory speech, Martinez Ferrada again touched on the need to build relationships with other mayors and other levels of government — as well as Montrealers who didn’t vote for her.
She also talked about her own experience growing up in Montreal as a child of immigrants and learning to build relationships of her own.
Speaking briefly in Spanish, Martinez Ferrada said her grandfather used to tell her to “look beyond the horizon.” She said Montreal now needs to do the same.
