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In the early days of the provincial election campaign, Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon used the Roger-Comtois High School in Quebec City as a backdrop to explain why his party wants to reduce immigration levels. <\/p>\n
He said the school had to add 24 modular classrooms to deal with overcrowding, blaming the issue on Quebec’s “greatly exceeded” immigration capacity.<\/a><\/p>\n Days later, St-Pierre Plamondon made a similar connection, this time between immigration and the housing crisis.<\/p>\n “We are not talking about blaming anyone, but rather about blaming very bad policies under the CAQ, and more specifically, under Christine Fr\u00e9chette’s CAQ when she was minister of immigration,” he said last week in Quebec City.<\/p>\n He said those policies “created an imbalance between supply and demand and an undeniable impact on prices.”<\/p>\n But is the province’s immigration rate truly behind these problems?<\/p>\n Most of the experts CBC consulted agree that a surge in immigration does contribute to supply and demand issues, but they say it\u2019s important to acknowledge longstanding trends that created these problems.<\/p>\n WATCH | Fact-checking PQ on immigration claims: PQ fact check: Is immigration contributing to Quebec\u2019s housing crisis and school overcrowding?<\/p>\n During its campaign, the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois linked a \u201closs of control on immigration\u201d to overcrowded schools and a lack of affordable housing in the province. But education and housing experts we spoke to say it\u2019s not that straightforward.Unusable classrooms, existing issues<\/p>\n According to data from Statistics Canada, the number of new immigrants in Quebec climbed under former prime minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s government.\u00a0<\/p>\n Temporary immigration in particular surged even higher after the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the number of combined permanent and temporary immigration numbers rose by about 54,000. In 2024, it rose by almost 140,000.<\/p>\n According to the Association qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise du personnel de direction des \u00e9coles (AQPDE), a surge in the number of first generation immigrant students has indeed driven school overcrowding in regions like Quebec City and the Mont\u00e9r\u00e9gie.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, we\u2019re asking teachers to teach outside instead of going to the gymnasium, we \u2019re asking teachers to go eat in their cars because we don\u2019t have any room, we\u2019re moving libraries to [turn them into] classrooms,\u201d said Andr\u00e9 Bernier, the association\u2019s president.<\/p>\n But Bernier points out overcrowding existed prior to the recent immigration surge, though at a lower level.\u00a0<\/p>\n He says the problem also exists in regions where immigration is much less significant, like in the MRC des Appalaches or Beauce.<\/p>\n Bernier says there\u2019s also been a lack of investment in maintaining school infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some schools there are areas which are not available because the schools are too old. They cannot use the rooms,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) does draw a link between immigration and vacancy rates in its 2026 Housing Market Outlook report.<\/p>\n But Olivier Jacques from the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al’s school of public health says that a variety of factors have contributed to the housing crisis. <\/p>\n He says measures by the federal government to help homeowners \u2014 like the exemption on capital gains tax for a primary residence or letting landlords deduct mortgage interest from rental income \u2014 have also increased demand and driven prices up.<\/p>\n \u201cFiscal policies were just giving too much money to owners. It increased prices because there\u2019s incentive to put your money in housing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He says new housing construction has also not kept pace with the need and even less so when it comes to social or affordable housing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe federal government basically withdrew from the housing field in 1995 to 2020. Trudeau tried to come back in but by the time the program was implemented it was basically 2020, so that\u2019s 25 years without any federal spending on housing,” he said.<\/p>\n He explains that while Quebec has invested in social housing since then, it hasn\u2019t been enough.<\/p>\n Pattern of ‘scapegoating’ immigrants<\/p>\n The Comit\u00e9 d\u2019Action de Parc-Extension adds that new construction has been dominated by\u00a0 \u201ccondo\u201d style rentals, which it says don\u2019t meet most people\u2019s needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it has actually meant concretely is an enormous amount of public money being handed out to real estate developers to build so-called \u201caffordable housing\u201d or in some cases, luxury housing that is far too expensive for the vast majority of people who are struggling,\u201d said Amy Darwish, the committee’s co-ordinator.<\/p>\n She argues that political parties have a pattern of \u201cscapegoating\u201d immigrants to boost their popularity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we really need is a serious investment in social housing and measures that actually protect tenants such as rent control, and rent freezes, as well as a moratorium on evictions,” she said. <\/p>\n “I think these are things that would actually make housing more affordable.” <\/p>\n From the Eastern Townships to Quebec’s Far North and everywhere in between, CBC\u2019s new podcast, This is Quebec<\/a>, brings you the stories shaping life across the province.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Tune in to This is Quebec with Breakaway host Alison Brunette for a new episode every Friday on CBC Listen<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789412177_449_default.jpg\")
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Roger-Comtois High School in Quebec City has added 24 modular classrooms to deal with overcrowding. (Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Brassard\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789412179_419_default.jpg\")
Andr\u00e9 Bernier is the president of the Association qu\u00e9b\u00e9coise du personnel de direction des \u00e9coles. (Pierre-Alexandre Bolduc\/Radio-Canada)Variety of factors contributing to housing crisis<\/p>\n