Josefina Blanco
Josefina Blanco was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2001, she moved to Madrid, Spain, where she studied Social Work at the Complutense University of Madrid from 2006 to 2009. During her final year, she participated in the Erasmus exchange programme at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.
In 2010, she settled permanently in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. During her early years in the city, she focused, among other things, on learning French, a process that facilitated her integration into the French-speaking metropolis and enabled her to engage fully with Quebec’s social, cultural, and economic life.
She obtained Canadian citizenship in 2015 and, two years later, responded to the call of Projet Montréal, a progressive, feminist, and environmentalist political party, by running in the 2017 municipal elections.
That same year, she was elected to Montreal City Council for the first time. During her first term (2017–2021), she served on several boards and standing committees, including the Commission on Social Development and Diversity and the Public Security Commission, which addresses issues primarily related to the city’s police services.
During this period, she spearheaded the initiative to officially recognize October as Latin American Heritage Month in Montreal. The declaration was unanimously adopted by City Council in 2019, and the month has been celebrated annually in the city ever since.
In 2021, she was re-elected to City Council and appointed by the mayor to Montreal’s Executive Committee, the city’s senior executive governing body. In this role, she assumed significant responsibilities in the areas of diversity and social inclusion, homelessness, universal accessibility, women’s equality, older adults, and youth. She thus became the first Latin American woman to serve on Montreal’s Executive Committee.
From 2020 to 2025, she also served on the board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, where she participated in and chaired several standing committees.
Re-elected in late 2025, Josefina Blanco is currently serving her third term as a city councillor. Alongside her public responsibilities, she continues to collaborate with civil society organizations and stakeholders on issues including diversity and inclusion, civic engagement, democracy, and public policy development.
Her journey across Argentina, Spain, the Netherlands, and Canada, combined with her experience in municipal politics and public service, has shaped an international perspective on the challenges facing diverse societies and the role cities can play in building more inclusive, participatory, and democratic communities.