MONTREAL 2025 MUNICIPAL ELECTION - ACTION MONTREAL STANDS OUT ON LANGUAGE ISSUES
INTRODUCTION
An election campaign is the perfect time to see what our political parties really think about a given issue. Here, we will examine and compare the measures for the protection and promotion of French of the five main parties in the 2025 Montreal municipal election.
The vast majority of voters decide how to vote based on a wide range of factors, including economic ones. For a comparison of the party platforms in general, see here. Our goal here is to provide information on language issues so you can consider them when casting your ballot. It's up to you to decide how important language issues are to you.
We have examined the election platforms (although the term "election platform" is often not used) of each of the five main parties to identify differences on language issues, including related topics. Many of you probably don't have the time (or, let's be honest, the interest) to go through all the details of election platforms. So, to simplify YOUR task, we will immediately summarize the lessons we draw from our analysis.
KEY CONCLUSIONS
On the language issue, there is a clear divide between the five parties:
- Two parties (Luc Rabouin's Projet Montréal and Craig Sauvé's Transition Montréal) are silent on language issues, but our analysis suggests that they are unlikely to take dramatic actions to either reinforce or challenge the actions taken by Valérie Plante's administration to ensure that Montreal remains a French city, as stipulated in its Charter.
- Two parties (Soraya Martinez Ferrada's Ensemble Montréal and Jean-François Kacou's Futur Montréal) are also silent on language issues, but our analysis suggests that these parties have little or no sympathy for the promotion of French, and there is a real risk of dramatic action to challenge the actions taken by Valérie Planre's administration to ensure that Montreal remains a French city.
- Finally, Gilbert Thibodeau's Action Montréal is the only party to explicitly speak out on language issues. It affirms its desire to uphold Montreal's French character and that if adjustments are necessary, it will implement them in the interest of all, for a city proud of its Francophone identity and open to the world. How this would distinguish this party from the Plante administration in practice is less clear, but the will to promote french seems to be there.
In short, there is a real difference between the parties. It's up to you to take this into account.
FOR MORE
If you wish more information on the legal linguistic environment of the city of Montreal, and a detailed analysis of the platforms of the 5 parties on language matters, please read the french version of this post.
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Marc Ryan
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