Boyer won with 58.9% as Mouvement Lavallois captures 17 council seats
By Matthew Daldalian – The Laval News
Stéphane Boyer won a second term as mayor of Laval, as Mouvement Lavallois – Équipe Stéphane Boyer tightened its grip on city hall by taking 17 of 22 council seats in the elections.
Boyer took 58.87 per cent of the vote (58,013 ballots), well ahead of Parti Laval leader Claude Larochelle at 21.75 per cent (21,432 votes) and Action Laval’s Frédéric Mayer at 19.37 per cent (19,091). Turnout was 31.09 per cent, slightly higher than the 28.76 per cent recorded in 2021, when he first won the mayor’s chair with 41.53 per cent support.
Radio-Canada projected Boyer’s re-election around 8:35 p.m., and by hour’s end he was on stage at Insulaires Microbrasseurs, calling the result the biggest victory in his party’s history and promising to secure more provincial investment.
Mayor Stéphane Boyer celebrates his re-election Sunday night at Insulaires Microbrasseurs, where Mouvement lavallois supporters gathered following early projections confirming his victory. (Matthew Daldalian, The Laval News)
In an interview with The Laval News a short time later, Boyer said the strong result was a sign voters were backing his team’s direction. “I’m very proud. I’m proud of the citizens for their renewed confidence in me. I’m proud of my team,” he said.
Boyer said his immediate priorities will be reinvesting in aging neighbourhood streets and pressing the Quebec government for more funding for health, education and homelessness services in Laval ahead of the 2026 provincial election. He argued the province spends far less per resident in Laval than in Montreal or Quebec City.
New council seat count
While Mouvement Lavallois held onto power in most of its strongholds, the new 22-seat council will look different from 2021.
Action Laval was reduced from five council seats to two, with veteran councillor David De Cotis re-elected in Saint-Bruno and Isabelle Piché keeping Saint-François.
Parti Laval will send two councillors to city hall: incumbent Louise Lortie in Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and newcomer Martin Vaillancourt in Fabreville-Sud.
Mouvement Lavallois, which held 14 seats after the 2021 election, will now occupy 17, including key wins in Duvernay and Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and one in the new district of Le Carrefour.
Independent councillor Aglaia Revelakis monitors election day operations at her Chomedey campaign headquarters as polls close Sunday evening. (Matthew Daldalian, The Laval News)
Independent councillor Aglaia Revelakis held onto Chomedey in a tight three-way race over Action Laval’s Costa Deeb. She edged out Action Laval’s Costa Deeb by just 38 votes, taking 34.36 per cent of the vote (1,143 ballots) to Deeb’s 33.21 per cent (1,105).
Revelakis, who has represented Chomedey since 2013, will now begin a fourth term on Laval city council. Her razor-thin margin made Chomedey the only district to remain outside Mouvement Lavallois’ sweep.
Local races for Mouvement Lavallois
In Pont-Viau, executive committee member Christine Poirier was re-elected with one of the strongest margins of the night. She captured 74.54 per cent of the vote (2,960 ballots) for Mouvement Lavallois, far ahead of Parti Laval’s Redouane Yahmi and Action Laval’s Matthew Cammisano.
“I feel good. I’m optimistic. We’ve had a great campaign,” said Poirier, who spent the spring and summer knocking on doors across the district. “Laval citizens are happy with our work in general.”
A few districts away in Sainte-Dorothée, Mouvement Lavallois councillor Ray Khalil secured a fourth term in a tight race. He won 43.05 per cent of the vote (2,323 ballots), just 213 votes ahead of Action Laval’s James Lee Bissi at 39.10 per cent, while Parti Laval’s Valérie Rancourt finished third.
Re-elected Sainte-Dorothée councillor Ray Khalil of Mouvement Lavallois joins supporters during election night celebrations. (Matthew Daldalian, The Laval News)
“Election days are always hectic days, but they’re always fun days,” said Khalil. He added that staying close to residents between campaigns is key to his approach. “I still do my door-to-door every summer, even though it’s not an election.”
Opposition parties look ahead
At Action Laval headquarters in Vimont’s Resto Bar Brasse-Rires, the mood was subdued as Mayer finished third in the mayoral race. He said the result showed other parties had adopted Action Laval’s themes without voters noticing.
“We feel that we were at the right place. We just didn’t manage to communicate that it was our message that the other parties were taking over,” he said. While Mayer said it was too early to say exactly how Action Laval would position itself over the coming months, he insisted the party would continue to try to channel residents’ concerns. “For sure we will keep being the voice of the citizens,” he added.
Parti Laval leader Claude Larochelle at Bistro le Rossignol, where the party gathered to watch results Sunday evening. (Matthew Daldalian, The Laval News)
Over at Parti Laval’s gathering in Bistro le Rossignol, Larochelle accepted defeat in the mayoral contest but said he was satisfied his team had run a clean campaign and maintained a presence on council thanks to wins in Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and Fabreville-Sud.
“I’m pretty proud of the campaign that we made, a campaign we made with integrity and we followed our plan,” Larochelle said.
A long-time critic of low turnout, Larochelle lamented over voters cast a ballot in Laval on Sunday, even if the rate ticked up slightly from 2021. “No vote, no excuse. You live with the people who are elected,” he said.
Back at Insulaires, Boyer told supporters he plans to use his strengthened majority to press the Quebec government harder on funding for hospitals, education facilities and social services and mount a major citizens’ campaign ahead of the 2026 provincial election. “Laval has been forgotten for too long, and that changes today,” he said in his victory speech.
