Only days into Quebec’s election campaign, migrants are once again being presented as the cause of overcrowded schools, unaffordable housing and deteriorating public services.
Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to reduce the number of temporary migrants in Quebec from more than 500,000 to between 200,000 and 250,000. Standing outside a Quebec City high school using modular classrooms, he declared that Quebec had suffered a “total loss of control” over immigration.
The location was not incidental. It transformed immigrant children into a visual explanation for overcrowded classrooms and crumbling schools. As Québec solidaire spokesperson Ruba Ghazal correctly argued, years of government underinvestment—not immigrant children—are responsible for the deterioration of public education.
St-Pierre Plamondon insists that he blames the CAQ and the federal government, rather than migrants themselves. But political scapegoating does not require openly attacking individuals. When politicians repeatedly place migrants beside images of housing shortages, crowded schools and overwhelmed hospitals, they encourage the public to see those migrants as the problem.
Migrants are being reduced to a number
The expression “temporary immigrants” conceals very different groups of people: asylum seekers escaping persecution, international students, temporary foreign workers and family members. Many have lived, worked and raised children in Quebec for years. They are not a temporary burden—they are members of our communities who have been denied permanent rights.
Official figures also show that the number of non-permanent residents in Quebec was already falling before this election promise. It declined from approximately 565,450 in January 2025 to an estimated 514,050 in January 2026. Yet the PQ proposes a far more drastic reduction that could uproot hundreds of thousands of people, without explaining who would be forced to leave, whose permits would not be renewed or which families would be separated. Institut de la statistique du Québec
Calling this an administrative “target” does not erase its human consequences.
Migrants did not dismantle public services
Immigration can increase demand for housing, schools and health care. But demand becomes a crisis only when governments refuse to build and adequately fund the services a growing society needs.
Migrants did not stop governments from constructing social housing. They did not allow affordable apartments to disappear into the speculative market. They did not impose austerity on schools or create staff shortages in hospitals. These were political decisions made over many years.
Even after Quebec’s temporary migrant population began declining and Montreal’s rental market became less pressured in 2025, rents continued to rise sharply. This exposes the limits of blaming population growth: reducing migration does not control landlords, eliminate speculation or create affordable housing. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Migrants are an easy target precisely because governments do not want scrutiny directed toward property developers, large landlords, corporate profits, privatization or their own failure to invest in public infrastructure.
Wanted as workers, rejected as neighbours
The contradiction in the PQ proposal is revealing. The party wants to dramatically reduce temporary immigration while protecting agriculture, manufacturing and health care—sectors that depend heavily on migrant labour.
In other words, employers should continue receiving the workers they need, but those workers should remain disposable and politically suspect.
Quebec Liberal leader Charles Milliard criticized the proposal mainly because businesses already face labour shortages. This is not an adequate defence of migrants either. Migrant workers are human beings with rights, not units of labour to be retained when profitable and expelled when politically convenient.
Both positions reproduce the same injustice: migrants are valued according to what employers need, rather than recognized as full members of society entitled to security, equality and permanent status.
Precarious status is a political choice
Quebec and Canada deliberately expanded temporary migration programs because they provide employers with a workforce whose rights are restricted and whose presence can depend on a particular job or permit.
Closed work permits give abusive employers enormous power. International students pay inflated tuition fees while facing restrictions on work and access to permanent residence. Asylum seekers perform essential labour while living under the constant threat of rejection and deportation.
Governments created this precarious system. They cannot now punish the people trapped inside it for its consequences.
Reducing the number of temporary migrants without guaranteeing permanent status would not end exploitation. It would deepen insecurity, encourage deportations, separate families and leave workers even more afraid to report wage theft or unsafe conditions.
Status for all—not scapegoats
The Migrant Workers Centre rejects the attempt to make migrants pay for decades of political failure.
Quebec needs massive investment in public and cooperative housing, schools, health care and public transit. It needs stronger protections against rent increases and real measures against property speculation. It must abolish closed work permits, defend the right to asylum and provide permanent status for all.
The central question in this election should not be how many migrants Quebec can remove. It should be why governments continue to underfund public services while protecting those who profit from the housing crisis and precarious labour.
Migrant workers build homes, produce food, care for the sick, clean workplaces and sustain communities across Quebec. They are not responsible for the crisis.
They are among those forced to pay its highest price.
This commentary responds to statements reported by Global News and The Canadian Press on August 29, 2026.
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