Who is Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Montreal’s new mayor?

Former federal minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada became Montreal’s new mayor on Sunday.

Martinez Ferrada won the election by nearly 35,000 votes over her nearest competitor, Luc Rabouin.

The leader of Ensemble Montréal now takes over from former mayor Valerie Plante at the helm of Quebec’s largest city, marking a major shift in Montreal’s political landscape.

“I’m elected for the whole Montrealers, even those that didn’t vote for me,” the mayor-elect said. “And I think at the end of the day, we all love Montreal, maybe not in the same way or maybe not with the same intentions, but we all love the city.”

Born in Chile, Soraya Martinez Ferrada arrived in Quebec as a political refugee at the age of seven after her family fled the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. She grew up in Montreal’s East End and calls herself “a daughter of Bill 101″ — the landmark language legislation that declared French the province’s official language and required immigrant children to go to school in French. Today she’s trilingual and speaks French without an accent.

“I think I’m the concrete example of what immigration can do to our city, to our country, to our province,” Martinez Ferrada said. “And I hope that in the conversations I will have with their future government of Quebec, they can see the benefit of having people like me in the city.”

Political watchers and community leaders say Martinez Ferrada’s background is important to highlight.

“It’s a very strong message to the CAQ, Mr. Francois Legault, we are willing to take the best person for the job, even though she’s an immigrant,” said Frantz André, the spokesperson and coordinator for Action Committee for People Without Status.

“It’s exciting for a woman of diversity seeing somebody who was not born here, who came as a refugee,” added political analyst Karim Boulos.

After graduating from HEC Montréal, Martinez Ferrada entered political life when she was first elected to city council in Saint-Michel – as a candidate for the now defunct Union Montréal – in 2005. She held office until the 2009 election, when she was defeated as the incumbent.

She then served as chief of staff for Vision Montréal’s Louise Harel, the leader of the official opposition.

Martinez Ferrada left politics briefly before returning as a senior advisor and chief of staff in the minister of Canadian heritage’s office.

In 2019 she was elected MP for Hochelaga, an electoral district that had not been Liberal for three decades.

That kicked off her career at the federal level. She was first appointed parliamentary secretary for then Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marco Mendicino. After winning re-election in 2021, she was appointed parliamentary secretary for the minister of transport and later the minister of housing.

In 2023, she was named minister of tourism and minister responsible for the economic development agency of Canada for the regions of Quebec.

When she announced she was running for the leadership of Ensemble Montréal – she ran uncontested and was acclaimed – it marked a return to where her political endeavours began: at the municipal level in Montreal.

Martinez Ferrada is set to officially take office in the coming days as Montreal’s 47th mayor and only the second woman ever – after Plante – to hold the job.

Martinez Ferrada said Monday her top priorities include helping to end the ongoing strike by public transit workers and tackling the issue of homelessness.

She confirmed the city will no longer dismantle tent encampments, and will work instead on putting longer-term solutions in place.

“Come January or February, we’ll get a taste of how she runs council… she’ll have a lot of power to act,” said Boulos.

–With files from Lola Kalder and The Canadian Press