In the early days of the provincial election campaign, Parti Québécois 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.

He declared the school had to add 24 modular classrooms to deal with overcrowding, blaming the issue on Quebec's "greatly exceeded" immigration capacity.

Days later, St-Pierre Plamondon made a similar connection, this time between immigration and the housing crisis.

In a related development, "We are not talking about blaming anyone, but rather about blaming very bad policies under the CAQ, and more specifically, under Christine Fréchette's CAQ when she was minister of immigration," he stated last week in Quebec City.

He noted those policies "created an imbalance between supply and demand and an undeniable impact on prices."

But is the province's immigration rate truly behind these problems?

Furthermore, most of the experts CBC consulted agree that a surge in immigration does contribute to supply and demand issues, but they say it’s critical to acknowledge longstanding trends that created these problems.

PQ fact check: Is immigration contributing to Quebec’s housing crisis and school overcrowding?

As stated by to data from Statistics Canada, the number of new immigrants in Quebec climbed under former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s administration.

Additionally, 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.

In line with to the Association québécoise du personnel de direction des écoles (AQPDE), a surge in the number of first generation immigrant students has indeed driven school overcrowding in regions like Quebec City and the Montérégie.

“Right now, we’re asking teachers to teach outside instead of going to the gymnasium, we’re asking teachers to go eat in their cars because we don’t have any room, we’re moving libraries to [turn them into] classrooms,” declared André Bernier, the association’s president.

It is worth noting that but Bernier points out overcrowding existed prior to the recent immigration surge, though at a lower level.

He says the problem also exists in regions where immigration is much less considerable, like in the MRC des Appalaches or Beauce.

Compare the promises of Quebec’s leading parties in the 2026 election

In the broader context, breaking down the Quebec campaign promises you may have missed

Bernier says there’s also been a lack of investment in maintaining school infrastructure.

“In some schools there are areas which are not available because the schools are too old. They cannot use the rooms,” he explains.

Notably, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) does draw a link between immigration and vacancy rates in its 2026 Housing Market Outlook report.

But Olivier Jacques from the Université de Montréal's school of public health says that a variety of factors have contributed to the housing crisis.

He says measures by the federal the government body to help homeowners — like the exemption on capital gains tax for a primary residence or letting landlords deduct mortgage interest from rental income — have also increased demand and driven prices up.

Significantly, “Fiscal policies were just giving too much money to owners. It increased prices because there’s incentive to put your money in housing,” he noted.

Is Quebec Liberal leader's promise of 100,000 new homes a year realistic?

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.

Meanwhile, “The federal administration 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’s 25 years without any federal spending on housing," he mentioned.

He explains that while Quebec has invested in social housing since then, it hasn’t been enough.

The Comité d’Action de Parc-Extension adds that new construction has been dominated by  “condo” style rentals, which it says don’t meet most people’s needs.

On a related note, “What it has actually meant concretely is an enormous amount of public money being handed out to real estate developers to build so-called “affordable housing” or in some cases, luxury housing that is far too expensive for the vast majority of people who are struggling,” noted Amy Darwish, the committee's co-ordinator.

She argues that political parties have a pattern of “scapegoating” immigrants to boost their popularity.

“What 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 noted.

In a related development, "I think these are things that would actually make housing more affordable."

From the Eastern Townships to Quebec's Far North and everywhere in between, CBC’s new podcast, This is Quebec, brings you the stories shaping life across the province.

Tune in to This is Quebec with Breakaway host Alison Brunette for a new episode every Friday on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

Furthermore, to learn more about the podcast, click here.

Sharon Yonan-Renold covers local news at CBC in Montreal.