Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Ile-des-Soeurs

This Montreal riding stretches from the summit of Mount Royal down through the western half of the Ville-Marie borough — encompassing much of downtown, Old Montreal, and the Old Port — into the working-class and rapidly gentrifying neighbourhoods of Le Sud-Ouest: Saint-Henri, Little Burgundy, Griffintown, and Pointe-Saint-Charles. It also takes in Nuns' Island in the borough of Verdun and extends to Ile-Sainte-Helene in the St. Lawrence. The riding includes Concordia and McGill universities, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Lachine Canal corridor. French is the most commonly spoken language at home — roughly 43 percent — but English follows at 21 percent, and the riding's immigrant population, at approximately 32 percent, speaks a wide range of languages including Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish.

Candidates

Marc Miller (Liberal) — Born and raised in Montreal, Miller holds degrees in political science from the Universite de Montreal and in both common and civil law from McGill University. A former infantry soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces, he later practised mergers-and-acquisitions law in Montreal, Stockholm, and New York. First elected in 2015, Miller served as Minister of Indigenous Services beginning in 2019. He made history in 2017 by delivering a statement in the House of Commons entirely in Mohawk.

Sophie Thiebaut (NDP) — A longtime community organizer in the Sud-Ouest, Thiebaut served for twelve years as borough councillor for the district of Saint-Henri-Est—Petite-Bourgogne—Pointe-Saint-Charles—Griffintown. She founded Mobilisation Turcot in 2007, a citizens' movement that advocated for sustainable redevelopment of the Turcot Interchange with improved public transit. The 2021 race was her second federal campaign.

Steve Shanahan (Conservative) — A marketing consultant with a degree in administration from Bishop's University, Shanahan previously served on Montreal city council for the Peter-McGill district from 2013 to 2017. He had also run as the Conservative candidate in the riding in 2015 and 2019.

Soledad Orihuela-Bouc (Bloc Quebecois) — A nineteen-year-old student in humanities at Cegep du Vieux Montreal, Orihuela-Bouc carried the Bloc's banner in one of Montreal's most Liberal-leaning ridings.

About the Riding

Few federal ridings in Canada contain as stark a juxtaposition of wealth and precarity. The downtown core and Nuns' Island feature luxury condominiums and corporate offices, while neighbourhoods like Pointe-Saint-Charles and Little Burgundy have historically been among Montreal's poorest. Griffintown — abandoned and semi-derelict for decades — has undergone an intense wave of condo development since the early 2000s, transforming former industrial lots along the Lachine Canal into glass towers.

The gentrification of Le Sud-Ouest has been a defining local issue. Rents in Saint-Henri and Pointe-Saint-Charles rose sharply in the years leading up to the 2021 election, displacing low-income tenants and straining the supply of social housing. Advocacy groups pressed candidates on affordable housing, tenant protections, and the pace of development.

Miller's profile as a cabinet minister — particularly his work on Indigenous affairs — gave the riding an outsized national presence. His fluency in French, English, and Mohawk reflected a constituency where linguistic diversity and cultural pluralism are woven into daily life. The riding's student population, drawn by its two major universities, adds a transient but politically engaged demographic layer.