Shant Karabajak is banking on affordability for a win

Shant Karabajak is a high school teacher by day, teaching seventh and eighth-graders geography and history. Outside of school hours, he is going door to door in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest, campaigning for borough mayor with Transition Montréal.

He moved to the Sud-Ouest at the end of 2017 after a run for a city councillor position in his previous borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville with the now-defunct Coalition Montréal. In the 2021 election, he ran for borough mayor of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal with Ensemble Montréal. He lost in both elections. 

This will be his first election running for a position in the Sud-Ouest while living in the borough. If he wins, he hopes to use his master's degree in Urban and Regional Development to make life more affordable for all. This includes building off-market housing, such as social and cooperative housing.

“The private sector's ambition isn't to make units of housing, it's to make the most money possible. If they could achieve their financial goals with one house, they would do it,” says Karabajak. 

Affordability also fits into another focus of his campaign, homelessness.

“With my urban planning background, I knew very factually that the number one cause of homelessness is not addiction or drug consumption, it's affordability,” says Karabajak.

A 2024 report by the city of Montreal states the island has over 67,000 units that are not on the private market. The units are housing co-ops, low-income social housing and other units operated by non-profit organizations.  A little over 9,500 of them are found in the Sud-Ouest, the most in Montreal. 

In 2021, Karabajak also campaigned on affordability in his run for mayor in Plateau, but he was defeated by Projet Montréal’s leader, Luc Rabouin. Karabajak came in second with nearly 18 per cent of the vote.

One of the major differences between that campaign and this one is that Karabajak currently lives in the borough where he is running for office. He was living outside of the Plateau in 2021. Danielle Pilette, a professor at Université du Québec à Montréal specializing in municipal management, says living in your riding can improve your odds of winning. 

“In certain communities that have a strong sense of belonging, it's important. It can help a candidate get elected,” she says. She adds that the Sud-Ouest is one of those boroughs that feels this way.    

According to Pilette, a candidate’s professional and political background is also important for residents of the Sud-Ouest. While Karabajak has lived in the area on and off since 2017, he doesn’t have much experience in the borough. He has experience working with a housing cooperative, but it's one located in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. 

“Opportunities and experiences within the borough didn't materialize for me,” says Karabajak. He tried with a few different organizations, but he says, “They were looking for different profiles.”

One of Karabajak’s opponents is Projet Montréal’s Véronique Fournier. She does have that long track record. She has been a resident of the borough for 25 years. She was a city councillor for the Sud-Ouest from 2009 to 2013. 

During her time as city councillor, the borough adopted a mandatory inclusion strategy for housing. 

“We ensure that our developments include different types of housing,” says Fournier, something she plans to continue if elected. 

However, Karabajak does have a key ally, Craig Sauvé, who has a history of success in the borough. He has been a city councillor in the Sud-Ouest since 2013, winning three elections.

While Karabajak admits to not being the most active person in the borough before this election cycle, he is trying to reach as many residents as he can now. His team recently hosted a launch party at Bar Courcelle in the borough. Residents took advantage of the event to speak with the candidates. Although it wasn’t the first event to reach the public, his team has also attended local events such as the Little Burgundy Festival and Monktoberfest. 

He is confident that the reactions he has been getting from the public in this campaign will lead to a win. He says he had success on a street in Little Burgundy.

“Every door we knocked on [they said] ‘on this street, don’t worry about it, we are all voting Transition Montreal,’” says Karabajak.