Rich in culture and community, but not in cash
Park Extension candidates share their platforms, severe poverty a main concern in the borough
Of the five boroughs Emem Etti has lived in since moving to Montreal in 2018, the Park Extension resident says her current neighbourhood is the most diverse.
The long streets in the area are peppered with local businesses owned by people from all over the world, and anyone walking down them is likely to hear residents greeting their neighbours in various languages.
According to the 2025 Table de Quartier de Parc-Extension (TQPE) report, Park Ex is seen as an immigration hub, with 65.5 per cent of its residents being immigrants or non-permanent residents.
However, despite the heterogeneous population and strong sense of community Etti described, the district is also the poorest neighbourhood in Quebec.
According to the TQPE, in 2021, 30 per cent of Park-Extension residents were considered to be living on low income. The median after-tax income for people 15 and over was $24,800, which is significantly lower compared to other working-class Montreal neighbourhoods, indicated the report.
Projet Montreal’s Laurence Lavigne Lalonde, current mayor of the Villeray–Saint-Michel– Parc-Extension borough, said in an interview with The Link that, at the municipal level, “it’s hard for us to have a direct impact on the level of poverty.”
Lalonde explained that issues such as employment and immigration status fall under provincial and federal jurisdiction.
Lalonde, who replaced Projet Montréal’s Giuliana Fumagalli four years ago, is not running for re-election. Rather, it will be Jean-François Lalonde in the candidacy for mayor alongside city councillor candidate Elvira Carhuallanqui.
Ensemble Montréal’s Mary Deros, current Park Ex city councillor, is running for her eighth council term, while Transition Montréal’s Abdul Raziq Khan is running for city councillor for the district.
A recent Segma Recherche poll on city mayor candidates showed 26 per cent support for Ensemble Montréal’s Soraya Martinez Ferrada; 18 per cent support for Projet Montréal’s Luc Rabouin; 8 per cent for Action Montréal’s Gilbert Thibodeau; and 5 per cent for Transition Montréal’s Craig Sauvé.
Thirty-seven per cent of participants were undecided, refused to respond or did not plan to vote.
In light of the upcoming municipal elections, candidates from leading parties are working to tackle some of the issues associated with the high degree of poverty in Park Ex.
Food banks in the area have received a significant increase in requests over the past few years because of factors such as rising food and housing costs, said the TQPE report. Other factors mentioned include restrictions in the labour market, particularly related to language and immigration status.
The Community-Based Action Research Network in Park-Extension notes on their website that many advocacy campaigns for food insecurity have been “launched and signed, but there has been little response from decision-makers or the wider public.”
Abdul Raziq Khan, Park Ex city councillor candidate for Transition Montréal and founder of nonprofit organization the Madinah Foundation, has lived in the neighbourhood his whole life. Khan said he plans to address food insecurity by providing meals to residents through his nonprofit, along with a lunch program for elementary and high school kids in partnership with the Centre Jeunesse Unie de Parc-Extension.
“I’m trying to create a hot meal program because when I was younger, I needed it, but there was no service available,” Khan said in an interview with The Link.
Khan said many of his friends in elementary and high school went to school without food for lunch. Khan said he also struggled to get lunch at school.
“My mom used to give me $2, and I used to survive off $2,” Khan said.
The TQPE report stated that 17.1 per cent of households in Park Ex represent urgent housing needs. This means dwellings are inadequate, unaffordable or unsuitable, and rent would cost more than 30 per cent of the household's before-tax income, according to Statistics Canada.
The rate for the city of Montreal is only 10.5 per cent. Rising rents, evictions and renovictions remain major issues in Park Ex, the report added.
Lalonde said she worked extensively during her time in office to decrease the frequency of renovictions.
“We did a few changes in the bylaws, but I'm pretty sure we can innovate,” Lalonde said. “Create a new way of protecting people in their house because we still see people buying a duplex, triplex and kicking everybody out because they want to renovate a bathroom.”
Sylvain Gariépy, mayoral candidate for Ensemble Montréal, said affordable housing is a main concern for him. Gariépy said the district has eight unoccupied properties that have been owned by the city for several years but have never been developed.
“Honestly, I don't understand why [they haven’t been developed],” Gariépy said in an interview with The Link. “When you're buying a property, it's because you have a vision of what you want to do with those properties.”
The Ensemble Montréal candidate said he plans to make it easier and more affordable to quickly develop these properties into adequate, affordable housing.
“We need to accelerate things,” Gariépy said.
Etti said that a sense of community is very important for many Park Ex residents from non-Western cultures.
“[Park Ex] just feels very communal in a way that I haven't seen in other neighbourhoods,” Etti said.
Ensemble Montréal recently stated that they stand by Thierry Daraize, Ensemble Montréal’s Sud-Ouest mayoral candidate, despite concern about several controversial posts made by the candidate that have since been deleted.
In the posts, Daraize called muslims “bearded radicals” and called Canada’s special representative on combatting islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby, dangerous. In a press release, The Canadian Muslim Forum (CMF) said these remarks are offensive and “contribute to a climate of hostility that endangers Montrealers, particularly Muslim women, and undermine the city’s core values of respect, inclusion, and equality.”
Daraize’s posts also included disinformation about Gaza and joked about booking a “2032 vacation to Gaza in an all-inclusive.” “Such repeated insensitivity reveals a troubling disregard for human dignity and empathy,” said the CMF press release.
Lalonde said it's important for future borough leaders to remain close to the residents so they are not afraid to ask the city for help. Khan, for his part, says he’s working on creating a community centre for adults.
“There's no place where a kid can go after the age of 18 years old,” said the Transition Montréal candidate.
Gariépy said he thinks it’s essential that the city is present and proactive in neighbourhood events and religious institutions to maintain the connection and trust between the government and residents.
“I think public services should go towards those people and not wait for them to come towards the public services,” Gariépy said. “We as a public body need to develop those links with those communities, and show them that we can assist them in whatever services they require and that the city can offer them.”
On the official Élections Montréal website, Projet Montréal’s Mayoral Candidate Jean-François Lalonde said housing and quality of life are his main priorities. Lalonde emphasizes accessibility, inclusion, equity and ecology as guiding principles for his platform.
Etti said she will be voting in the upcoming elections and hopes future leaders of Park Ex will address the poverty in the neighbourhood and focus on improving the quality of life for residents.
“You can tell that some residents really struggle,” Etti said.
She called on the future members of the municipal government to take action: “They have to figure out what [residents] need in order to live better lives in this city and in this neighbourhood,” said Etti.
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