Montreal City Weblog

Kate 21:08 on 2025-10-19 Permalink Reply  

• Ephraim 10:41 on 2025-10-20 Permalink

  What’s the point? Mayors have absolutely NO SAY on immigration policy, whatsoever.

• Joey 11:23 on 2025-10-20 Permalink

  The point is to participate in the public conversation to influence public opinion and, ultimately, affect policy. Learning about the candidates’ views on important issues that are beyond the mayor’s or the council’s area of influence nevertheless reveals valuable information to help guide voters (e.g., I suspect a lot of people here would be nudged toward or away from a candidate on the basis of their attitude towards immigrants). And, finally, how cities behave (in terms of expanding or contracting housing, public services, etc.) has a direct impact on the country’s/province’s ability to welcome new immigrants. Just because the targets are established elsewhere doesn’t mean immigration is irrelevant to the city or to the campaign.

• Ephraim 11:53 on 2025-10-20 Permalink

  In Quebec, the city government have EXTREMELY limited powers. They have absolutely no say on immigration at all. It’s as useful as knowing how often they wear a baseball cap backwards. They have no say. They can’t do anything about it. And it just makes me wonder how well they will represent me when they don’t even know their scope of power.

• Jim 12:15 on 2025-10-20 Permalink

  I’m with Ephraim here. It’s great that mayoral candidates share their views, but they sometimes seem to forget the division of powers between federal, provincial, and municipal levels. Immigration policy, who gets selected, admission targets, and quotas.It is managed by the federal and provincial governments, not the city.

  That said, municipalities do play an indirect role through housing, integration, and local services, which affect how well newcomers can settle.

  IMO, when campaign time is short, it would be good to focus the debate on real municipal issues.The ones they can actually act on.

• DeWolf 16:48 on 2025-10-20 Permalink

  I think Joey is right here. Immigration is essential to Montreal in many different ways. Even if municipal officials have no control over immigration levels, francisation courses, etc., it’s important to know what their priorities are when it comes to immigration.

  And cities are responsible for various immigration-related things, including funding community organizations that support immigrants, co-ops and other initiatives that provide housing for immigrants, festivals that support immigrant cultures and so forth.