MONTREAL — Metro and bus service in Montreal is expected to be disrupted nearly every day this November because of a transit strike involving about 2,400 maintenance workers, and municipal election day this Sunday is no exception.
Between Oct. 31 and Nov. 28, buses and metros will operate only during morning and afternoon rush hours, and late at night. The scheduled was decided by a labour tribunal mandated to determine the minimal level of service required for public health and safety.
The transit agency — Société de transport de Montréal — had argued before the province’s labour tribunal that service be extended on election day to ensure as many voters as possible could get to the polls, open between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Voter turnout has been low in recent elections, notably in 2017 and 2021 when less than half of eligible voters cast ballots, the agency had said.
However, administrative judge François Beaubien didn’t agree, ruling that the level of service proposed by the union for Sunday was sufficient.
“When it comes to essential services, the tribunal’s role isn’t to weigh workers’ right to strike with citizens’ right to vote,” Beaubien wrote in his decision. “Rather, it must ensure that public health or safety isn’t endangered by the strike, by ensuring that essential services are maintained while infringing as little as possible on the right to strike.”
The bus and metro strike, Beaubien said, “will not prevent citizens from exercising their right to vote,” adding that most polling stations are within walking distance of voters’ homes.
Montreal’s paratransit bus service, for people with disabilities, will operate as usual during the month of November.
The strike will be the third by the maintenance workers union since June. In a statement, union president Bruno Jeannotte acknowledged the strike will have a major impact on the population, but he said the transit agency is partly to blame.
“We are putting all our energy into reaching an agreement that will be satisfactory,” he said in a news release. “If the (transit agency) maintains its hard line, remains inflexible, and continues to sit on its hands, it will be solely responsible for this strike, which could have been avoided.”
Roughly $9 million in revenue has been lost so far this year as a result of the transit strikes, according to an estimate shared Wednesday by the regional transit body that manages transit fare in Montreal.
Another union, representing the network’s bus and metro drivers, says its members will go on strike for three days next month, on Nov. 1, 15 and 16. The labour tribunal will also determine the minimal level of service the 4,500 workers will be required to give.
At a hearing on Wednesday, the union representing bus and metro drivers asked that service be halted for the entire day on Nov. 1, with exceptions only for paratransit users. Jean-René Lafrance, the lawyer for the transit agency, said the network wasn’t opposed.
In a statement, the bus and drivers union said it would wait until the tribunal rules on the Nov. 1 strike day before it proposes a schedule for the other two days.
A mediator is scheduled to join negotiations soon between bus and metro drivers and the transit agency.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2025.
Miriam Lafontaine, The Canadian Press
