What does the “silence of the ballots” refer to in Montreal?

The day after the vote in Montreal. Posters are still hanging on street corners, Soraya Martinez Ferrada’s face towers over the poles, and Ensemble Montréal and its leader now govern the city.

At the Maison du citoyen in Saint-Michel, a young community worker adjusts microphones in a small music studio. Between recordings, Riyadh Amokrane talks about voting, trust, and disillusionment. Two days after the municipal elections on November 2, his office is quiet. Montreal has just shifted political direction, but 63% of voters, including Riyadh, stayed away from the polls.

The fading vote

In the municipal elections on November 2, only 37.02% of Montrealers exercised their right to vote. This is a historically low rate, falling below 25% in several working-class neighborhoods.

In LaSalle, the Cecil-P.-Newman district recorded a turnout of 23.47%. In Saint-Michel, barely 24.07% of voters cast their ballots. In Pierrefonds-Roxboro, an outlying borough that, like many Montreal neighborhoods, has a high percentage of families living in poverty, turnout peaked at 28%. According to Elections Quebec, the poorest, youngest, and most culturally diverse neighborhoods are the least likely to vote.

Behind Soraya Martinez Ferrada’s victory, one question remains: who elected the new mayor? And who chose not to? Citizens and former candidates speak out.

“I wanted to vote, but I didn’t push myself”

Riyadh Amokrane, 30, works in violence prevention at the Maison du citoyen in Saint-Michel. In the studio he runs, La Zone LCSM, young people come to record music or simply to talk.

On November 2, he planned to vote for the first time in Montréal-Nord, where he lives. “I knew a candidate in Saint-Michel,” he says. “He had asked me to vote for a friend in Montréal-Nord. But on election day, I couldn’t find my voter card.”

Riyadh could have searched, called, or insisted. He didn’t. “I didn’t feel pushed to go further. It was as if something inside me was pulling me toward inaction,” he admits.

He explains this “something” as the distance he feels from institutions: “Since we’re young, anything institutional scares us. It’s not a fear of the system, no. It’s really a fear of belonging to a system that doesn’t look like us […] We have nothing to do with politics. It’s a world of hypocrites, in quotation marks.”

He observes this disconnection every day: “Young people here feel far from all of that. They don’t see municipal politics as something that affects them. Even I only understood late what the City actually does. This lack of information is serious!”

According to Riyadh, mobilization campaigns often miss their mark. “We make posters, contests, campaigns, but that’s not what works. What’s needed is human contact,” he says. He gives an example: “The only person I saw come talk to us naturally in the neighborhood was Éric Allen, an approachable candidate [from Action Montréal]. That’s what’s needed.”

Despite his disillusionment, Riyadh holds on to a belief: “I tell young people that voting is important. But we need to start believing again that this system belongs to us, at least a little.”

“They think municipal voting isn’t that important”

In Saint-Léonard, voter turnout didn’t exceed 30%. “It’s mostly seniors, often of Italian descent, who vote,” notes Azzouz Abdellah, 27, a former candidate for Projet Montréal. Reflecting on the 11.9% of votes he received, despite his strong connection with young people and the Maghreb community, he recalls the obstacles he faced during the campaign: “Young people, especially in the Maghreb community, think municipal voting isn’t that important.”

Over six weeks, Azzouz says he knocked on hundreds of doors. “Many told me they would vote. On election day, they didn’t show up. They say yes out of politeness, but they don’t really believe in change,” he believes.

According to him, the low turnout among the Maghreb community in Saint-Léonard (majority population around 20,000) also stems from a lack of cohesion: “We’re not yet a fully united community. Some vote based on the candidate’s background, not their platform.”

Despite the defeat, Azzouz remains determined and is already thinking about the next step, perhaps even the next election, he says. “I want to keep making things move. Maybe in a different way.”

“People don’t show up”

In Montréal-Nord, only 27.99% of eligible voters cast their ballots. Anastasia Marcelin, Action Montréal’s candidate for borough mayor, witnessed firsthand the reasons for this abstention. “People complain, but they don’t show up,” she says bluntly.

She describes her engagement as an act of resistance. “I’m an activist, I’m a fighter. It was a tragic event—a young person assaulted by a police officer—that pushed me to run,” Marcelin says. A community activist and entrepreneur, she campaigned in the streets among often wary citizens. “I met young people working at polling stations: none of them had voted,” she notes with surprise.

Marcelin attributes this phenomenon to a lack of electoral education. “People get lost. They confuse municipal parties with the Liberals. We need to start from the basics, in schools, universities, and communities.” For her, the solution lies in long-term education: “If we don’t do electoral education, Montréal-Nord will remain locked. We have four years to change that.” “Many citizens come from countries where voting isn’t a habit,” she observes.

In Saint-Michel, voting is stalled

In Saint-Michel, mobilization efforts were not enough to break the electoral silence or quench the community’s thirst to be heard. Vivre Saint-Michel en santé (VSMS) and other community organizations organized election cafés, meetings, and debates. Yet the mobilization didn’t reach beyond the walls of these organizations.

Naïma Mehennek, Transition Montréal’s candidate for city councilor in the François-Perrault district, experienced this firsthand. Having worked in the community sector for 20 years, she knows the realities of her neighborhood. Her candidacy, she says, “was a way to extend that engagement.”

“I thought to myself: ‘If I can sit at a table where there is power and decision-making, I could make our voices heard,’” Mehennek recalls. Her efforts, however, did not bear fruit. “People don’t know municipal elections. They don’t understand what a city councilor does. And many are not citizens or don’t believe their vote can change anything,” she explains.

Miss Mehennek describes a disinterest that, for many, is tied to migration challenges. “It’s a disengagement they bring with them. They don’t believe in politics,” she emphasizes.

But she also sees a collective responsibility: “If we don’t care about politics, politics will ignore us. The decisions we suffer are the result of that absence.”

“People don’t know what the City does”

In Parc-Extension, the situation is the same. Abdul-Razik Khan, 29, grew up there before opening a restaurant and a charitable organization. Running for city councilor with Transition Montréal, he received only 736 votes. Meeting him at Mama Khan, the Pakistani restaurant he runs on Saint-Denis Street, Abdul-Razik keeps a smile and stays clear-eyed. “Many people can’t vote. They are newcomers without citizenship,” he explains. But even those who can vote don’t always do so: “When I talk to them about city council, many tell me they don’t know what it’s for,” he adds.

His observations echo those of his fellow former candidates. “It’s a problem of political education. People vote in provincial or federal elections, but not municipal ones, because they don’t see the direct connection.”

He could have focused more on older voters during his campaign, as some advised him, but he preferred to speak to young people. “I want them to see themselves in someone like them. I work here, I live in the neighborhood. That’s what they want to see,” he says.

Between disillusion and a promise of the future

From Saint-Michel to Parc-Extension, from Montréal-Nord to Saint-Léonard, a few patterns emerge from the testimonies: older people vote, young people abstain; immigrant communities are wary of a system they barely understand; poorer neighborhoods participate little in democratic life.

Among those we met, despite the fatigue, something resembling a glimmer of hope can be seen. Those who lost say they want to remain engaged. Those who didn’t vote are already talking about starting to inform themselves again. It’s not yet a movement, but it’s a sign.

The change may come from a candidate like Zohran Mamdani – the young socialist elected mayor in New York, the son of immigrants who spoke the language of everyday life – or perhaps that change will come even closer: from a young person switching on a microphone in Saint-Michel, a mother explaining the vote to her child, or a defeated candidate who keeps knocking on doors.

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