Media subsites or tags about the election:
Radio-CanadaCTVTVALa PresseGlobal

Twitter hashtag #elxn43 is a good one to follow.

There are 18 federal ridings on the island of Montreal (PDF map from Elections Canada), currently represented by 13 Liberals, three NDP and one Bloc MP. One riding, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, is vacant and will elect a new MP in October.

The Gazette has a general explainer how to vote.

Here is a list grouping the Twitter feeds of all the Montreal MPs as of July 2019, including those not planning to run again.

A timeline of federal politics in this century is at the end of the page.

Montreal’s ridings before the election:

Ahuntsic-Cartierville: 2015 was the first election for a riding by this name. Mélanie Joly, Liberal, came into the public eye with a shy at the mayor’s job in 2013, where she did pretty well for a political newcomer with 26.5% of the votes. Nobody was surprised when she then jumped to the federal Liberals, won in Ahuntsic-Cartierville in 2015 and was given the Heritage portfolio, although she was later shifted to Tourism, Official Languages, and La Francophonie, some say as a demotion because she fumbled over forcing Netflix to fund a percentage of French-language content in its tax deal with Ottawa. Joly will be running again. She tweets a good deal and is recorded as saying quite a lot in the House. Joly on openparliament.ca, which says her favourite word (used most often in Parliament) is languages.

Bourassa: Longtime north-end stronghold of Denis Coderre, the current MP is Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, who won a byelection in 2013 triggered by Coderre stepping down to run for mayor. Dubourg held onto the riding handily in 2015, with a dominating 54% of the votes. Dubourg on openparliament.ca; favourite word: request.

Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle: 2015 was the first election for a riding by this name. Anju Dhillon, Liberal, won it with 55% of the votes. In a piece about West Island candidacies, the Gazette says she will be back. Dhillon on openparliament.ca; favourite word: women.

Hochelaga: Bloc was elected here from its revival in 2004 until the orange wave took it in 2011. In 2015, the NDP’s Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet held onto the riding, squeaking past the Liberals’ Marwah Rizqy 30.89% vs. 29.93% after a recount, with the Bloc not far behind. Boutin-Sweet is the NDP whip and critic for housing but she will not be running again this October. (Rizqy was later elected Liberal MNA for Saint-Laurent in the Quebec 2018 general election.) This October, the NDP candidate is Catheryn Roy-Goyette, the Bloc is running Simon Marchand and the Liberals Soraya Martinez, who has been a city councillor in the past. Election projection site 338canada.com calls this seat a tossup as of September 9.

Honoré-Mercier: Held by Pablo Rodríguez, Liberal, from 2004 until the orange wave brought in Paulina Ayala in 2011. Rodríguez took it back in 2015 with a crushing 56% of the vote to her 16% and was made Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism in July 2018 after Mélanie Joly dropped the Netflix ball. He is running again. Rodríguez on openparliament.ca; favourite word: million.

La Pointe-de-l’Île: Won in 2015 by Mario Beaulieu of the Bloc, in a fairly tight race with the Liberal and NDP candidates, the latter of whom was incumbent Ève Péclet. The riding had been Bloc since its creation in 2003 except for its orange wave moment in 2011. Beaulieu’s leadership of the Bloc has flickered on and off like a bad lightbulb. (He currently is not the leader. Yves-François Blanchet is party chief.) The NDP’s Ève Péclet will try to take the riding back this October, and Jonathan Plamondon is running for the Liberals. 338canada.com gives the Bloc the edge here. Beaulieu on openparliament.ca, which says, deliciously, that his favourite word is English.

Lac Saint-Louis: Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia has held this West Island riding firmly since 2004. There’s a certain irony in his last noted big political job: he chaired the Special Committee on Electoral Reform which, as we know, went nowhere. A commenter in a previous recension of this blog criticized Scarpaleggia for having declined to support gay marriage. The Gazette says Scarpaleggia is running again. Scarpaleggia on openparliament.ca; favourite word: budget.

LaSalle-Émard-Verdun: A new riding last time around, it elected Liberal David Lametti, appointed Minister of Justice and Attorney General in the January 2019 cabinet shuffle. Lametti is a highly educated legal scholar, but had not previously run for office. The initial NDP candidate in this riding has had to pack it in after accusations of domestic violence were made on social media. Lametti on openparliament.ca; favourite word, fittingly, justice.

Laurier Sainte-Marie: Noted environmentalist Steven Guilbeault will be running for the federal Liberals this fall in his first foray into electoral politics. Presumably the Liberals think he’s the candidate to wrest the riding back from the NDP, who’ll be running Nima Machouf, wife of Amir Khadir: the NDP’s Hélène Laverdière is not running again. 338canada.com earlier pegged this riding as a tossup but is now saying it’s leaning Liberal.

Mount Royal: A Liberal stronghold, once the bailiwick of Pierre Trudeau, who was followed by Sheila Finestone then Irwin Cotler. Current MP is Anthony Housefather, previously mayor of Côte St-Luc. In the 2015 election the Tories made an attempt on the riding, pitting Robert Libman – also a previous mayor of Côte St-Luc – against Housefather. The Conservatives came up second. Housefather is chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. He is running again. Housefather on openparliament.ca; favourite word: amendments.

NDG-Westmount: A new riding designated after the 2012 redistribution, which includes Montreal West and Westmount as well as NDG itself. Astronaut Marc Garneau, who had first taken the old Westmount-Ville-Marie riding in 2008, and where he also squeaked past the NDP candidate in 2011, won this riding easily over the NDP in 2015. He’s been Minister of Transport since that election. Garneau on openparliament.ca; favourite word, unsurprisingly, transport.

Outremont: Tom Mulcair’s bailiwick from 2007 till he stepped down in 2018 whereupon it was snapped up in a byelection by Liberal Rachel Bendayan. who is running again. The NDP candidate is Andrea Clarke, executive director of Head & Hands in NDG. Bendayan on openparliament.ca; like Housefather, her favourite word is amendment. 338canada.com thinks Outremont will remain Liberal this time out.

Papineau: Firmly Liberal since its creation in 1948 with the one exception of 2006-2008 when the Bloc’s Vivian Barbot took it away from Pierre Pettigrew. But she couldn’t hang onto it when Justin Trudeau chose to run there. Trudeau was an opposition MP there in 2008 and 2011, became leader of the party in 2013 and led it to victory in the 2015 election. Trudeau on openparliament.ca; it gives me great pleasure to note that Justin’s favourite word is Conservatives!

Pierrefonds-Dollard: This was Liberal Bernard Patry’s riding from 1993 to 2011, when he was swept out by the orange wave. Frank Baylis, a political newbie, won the riding back for the Liberals in 2015 with 59% of the votes, but is not seeking re-election this October. Sept 17: the Liberal candidate is Sameer Zuberi.

Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie: The NDP’s Alexandre Boulerice beat the Bloc here in 2011, and held onto the riding with 49% of the votes in 2015. He’s the NDP’s Quebec lieutenant and ethics critic and was appointed as the party’s deputy leader in March 2019 by Jagmeet Singh. Boulerice is the only NDP incumbent in Montreal planning to run again and likely the only NDP candidate with reasonable hope of winning. Boulerice on openparliament.ca; his favourite word: liberal! …The Liberals are running Geneviève Hinse here, although, as the lede to that story points out, they have not won in this riding for decades.

Saint-Laurent: Stéphane Dion, Liberal, held this riding like a rock from 1996, through his disastrous attempt to lead the party in opposition in 2006-2008 until he stepped down in 2017. A byelection in 2017 was won comfortably by Liberal Emmanuella Lambropoulos, a 26-year-old teacher with no political experience. Despite her youth, she does not tweet. She is running again. Lambropoulos on openparliament.ca; her favourite word is know. October, a brief news item mentions a misstep by Ms. Lambropoulos in which she described Steven Guilbeault as future environment minister.

Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel: This stolidly Liberal riding has a jinx on it. It was held by Alfonso Gagliano from 1988-2002, when he was named in the Gomery report on the sponsorship scandal and stepped down, then Massimo Pacetti from 2002 to 2015, dismissed after accusations of harassment. The most recent representative, Nicola Di Iorio, was elected in 2015, announced he was quitting politics at the end of 2018, then showed up again, wavered on whether he was really quitting, and finally left in January. The riding will not have a new MP till this October; Hassan Guillet was tipped to win, the first time someone from a non-Italian background was picked to represent the riding: Guillet is originally from Lebanon. However, Guillet has been sacked by the Liberals over allegedly antisemitic tweets or postings. September, they’ve reverted to tradition, with Ensemble councillor Patricia Lattanzio hoping to trade up in October. Guillet has now decided to run as an independent.

Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Sœurs: A new riding created in 2012 and first represented in the 2015 election, it was won by Liberal Marc Miller, said to be a close friend of Justin Trudeau. Miller on openparliament.ca; favourite word: projects.


Memo of federal elections and party changes in this century:

November 2000: Jean Chrétien’s Liberals defeat Stockwell Day’s Canadian Alliance, an attempt to unite the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservatives. The Liberals get a dominating 172 seats to the Alliance’s 66.
December 2003: Chrétien steps down as PM, handing the leadership off to finance minister Paul Martin.
June 2004: Paul Martin’s Liberals win a minority.
January 2006: General election called after a non-confidence motion brings down Martin government. Harper Tories win a minority, defeating Liberals still under Paul Martin.
October 2008: Harper Tories win another minority, defeating Stéphane Dion’s Liberals.
May 2011: Harper Tories win a majority, defeating Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals. The NDP becomes the official opposition for the first time in the “orange wave” under Jack Layton, while support for the Bloc Québécois drops so low it only wins 4 seats and loses official party status.
August 2011: Jack Layton dies.
2012: Tom Mulcair becomes NDP chief and embarks on three years hammering away at Stephen Harper. Also, there’s an electoral redistribution, the first since 2003, changing the names and boundaries of many ridings and adding an additional new Montreal riding, Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Sœurs. This new map will be used for the first time in 2015.
2013: Justin Trudeau becomes leader of the Liberals.
October 2015: Trudeau wins majority, Harper steps down, NDP slips back to third party.
2017: Andrew Scheer becomes Tory chief, Mulcair leaves as NDP chief and is replaced by Jagmeet Singh.
October 2019: 43rd Canadian general election.