Quebec Votes 2026: What Five Montreal Voters Want From the Next Government

A note on who we heard from:

When we set out to write this piece on Quebec’s upcoming election, we embarked intending to understand the myriad priorities and concerns at the top of mind of this cycle for a range of Montreal citizens.

What emerged, instead, was a story about those on the province’s left and the spectrum of voices they exhibit.

Two of these interviewees were sourced from an open call we put out on our socials and newsletter. They volunteered to share their opinions. Three were found by using contacts and asking around about who might be interested. We also asked over forty passersby in the Village and downtown if they were interested in speaking to us—none wished to participate.

Importantly, the demographics of this sample don’t reflect the demographics of the city, nor the province—they are, on average, white, male, and middle-aged. This speaks to the circle of individuals from which we obtained interviewees, while also revealing the population most inclined to share and most comfortable speaking about their political views—or crucially, those who don’t wish to share.

Though this is not the spectrum of views that we set out to uncover, it is a spectrum that, amid poll statistics that centre on PQ majority predictions and CAQ swiftly losing its base, offers an alternate perspective on the election.

The Voters

Mathieu Beaulieu is a 41-year-old illustrator living in the Sainte-Marie-Saint-Jacques riding. In what was a “pretty easy” decision, he will be voting for Québec solidaire candidate Roxane Milot. For Beaulieu, his main concerns this election are housing and the affordability crisis, as well as the environment.

Sergio da Silva is a 36-year-old bar and cafe owner living in the Mercier riding. He will be voting for Québec solidaire candidate and spokesperson Ruba Ghazal, and cites the party’s goal to “push forward more progressive politics,” as the reason. da Silva’s main concerns going into this provincial election are housing, healthcare, and affordability.

Mauricio Peña is a 41-year-old unionized worker for an international airline, as well as the manager of community forum Thrive NDG. Peña lives in the Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne riding. As someone for whom Québec solidaire “always made sense on paper [as] a party of immigrants that wants to build a Quebec for themselves… that includes everybody and doesn’t exclude people solely on things like language,” he will be voting for Québec solidaire candidate Guillaume Cliche-Rivard. The primary issues that concern him in this election are affordability and housing.

Patrick Dunbar is a 35-year-old lawyer also living in the Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne riding. Despite being a “historical Liberal Party voter,” because of Québec solidaire’s separatist views, he will likely be voting for Québec solidaire candidate Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, but with some “trepidation,” given Guillaume’s “potential vote for the referendum in the likelihood of a PQ majority.” Dunbar feels most passionate about housing, healthcare, and the environment.

May Chiu is a 61-year-old community organizer living in the Gouin riding. She is undecided on who to vote for, as “the parties that offer to make a real rupture… from the causes of the crises that we're going through now is what appeals to me the most.” For her, no one issue stands above the rest. As she puts it, “We’re living in a world of poli-crisis.” Chiu believes that “It’s really important to make sure that our equality rights are respected, but then we also want a liveable planet. There’s also the fact that… the polarization of wealth means that poverty is only increasing.”

The Caveat

At first glance, it may seem that these voters perfectly align with each other. Their overwhelming identification with Quebec solidare is significant, after all; and that is how most (if not all) will vote in the upcoming election. But they cannot be homogenized into one voting entity. Instead, when placed alongside each other, their opinions shape a story of individual upset and frustration that becomes about one collective exhaustion: a sense that the essentials for a stable life are slipping out of reach, and that the political conversation is looking elsewhere.

Everything is connected

Peña pinpoints the true reason that affordability is such a concern on the ballot: “Everything just feels increasingly out of reach for the average person. I don’t think that a society can function like that long term.” Beaulieu echoes these sentiments, explaining that “groceries, everything, costs more… for my community, my friends, everything is getting harder and harder.”

It’s not just groceries, which have been outclassing nearly every consumer good with an inflation rate of 3.9 per cent in July. Beaulieu also mentions that gas prices as well as rent can be grouped with that as well.

As Peña puts it, “what I’ve seen in the last four, five years, [the CAQ] focuses so much on the business-end of the province. They focus so much on giving back to landlords. They focus so much on giving tax breaks.” In Peña’s apartment building, “rent has gone up maybe 100 per cent in the last eight years…things have doubled.” But salaries aren’t being adjusted to maintain consistency, as he explains that “it went from at one point, one quarter of one paycheck was rent, to a whole paycheck was rent in the last 15 years.”

The question remains: if the people most willing to talk about this election expect so little from it, where do we go from here?

“When you look at some of the parties, and their ideas of preventing homelessness, most of it looks like a landlord subsidy… [instead] of making sure that rents remain affordable, so people don’t get evicted in the first place,” says da Silva. “You don’t have homeless people if people don’t get thrown out of their homes.”