The elections are scheduled for Nov 5, where Quebec’s 1,100 municipalities will undergo polls.

However, at least five municipalities will not witness the action that day due to no candidates, while people in around half of 1,100 municipalities will not vote as their candidates will run unopposed or are acclaimed.

The annual pay of a mayor in Quebec is around $10,000, which is relatively a very small amount.

To some, the working hours and not the pay is a bigger issue.

According to Lise Dery, a single-mother and the outgoing Mayor of a town, the need to be with her son forced her to relinquish her post.

Dery told the national news agency, "I’m a single mom. I have a great relationship with my boy’s father, but when you have a meeting almost every night ... my son started to have issues with the fact his mother was never around.”

Normand Dyotte, incumbent Mayor of Candiac, an off-island suburb of Montreal, who is running unopposed and will be beginning his third term, has dedicated the results to the pro-incumbency factor among the citizens.

"I am beginning my third mandate and I’m only the fourth mayor in 60 years," he said. "There is a type of continuity that has settled in here. The population has confidence in the mayors and the council."

The confident mayor said that even though he faced no opposition, he was ready to take battle it out if the situation had called for it.

According to experts, if a place fails to elect someone as their Mayor, it is the job of the Municipal Affairs Minister to step in and appoint someone.

Rise in women candidates

A significant change in the upcoming vote is the rise in the participation of women as candidates.

According to the local Global News, almost 31 percent of the candidates contesting the polls are women.

"There are 12,924 candidates for 8015 mayor and councilor positions, of which 31 per cent are women (up from 25 per cent in 2005)," says the report.

Around 385 women will be running for the post of the Mayor.

Even with such a turnaround, experts feel that the number is quite low in today's context.

"Last term, 17 per cent of mayors were women, and that number is really low," said Christina Smith, who is currently the interim mayor in Westmount.

Smith said that women faces a lot more criticism than their male counterparts and urged citizens to comment more on the work than the type of dress the individual is wearing.

"I hope that type of treatment goes away and what I’m wearing, or my hair is no longer a topic of conversation, and more what I’m committing to do for the city," she told Global News.

Speaking about the low attendance of women in Quebec politics, Scott Pearce, the outgoing mayor of Gore said that women are more prone to getting offended by criticism, while stating that local politics 'can get nasty'.

"There are times when things get really nasty and I think women are more sensitive to that and I think it turns them right off," he said.

The pro-french sentiment in Quebec is also a reason why it is hard at times to find a suitable candidate.

Pearce, an Anglophone, recalled how someone has spread negativity against him before an election.

"One election, someone sent a letter door to door in my town that a vote for me would be a vote for the hatred of French people and the blue flag of Quebec," he said.

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