A demographic decline already under way

The starting point is unambiguous: between 2022 and 2024, all of Quebec’s population growth came from immigration. Yet the recent tightening of immigration policies led to a net decline in 2025, as more than 50,000 non-permanent residents left Quebec.
According to projections from the Institut de la statistique du Québec, maintaining current immigration targets would lead to a population decline in Greater Montreal in the coming years, even as labour needs remain significant. The survey of 470 Greater Montreal businesses conducted for the study confirms this: 85% of them hire or plan to hire immigrants, mainly because they cannot find enough local workers to keep their operations running.

Absorptive capacity: a real constraint, but not a uniform one

The study goes beyond economic needs. It proposes an analytical framework to assess Greater Montreal’s ability to welcome an additional population, looking at housing, health, education, francization and transportation.

The picture is mixed. Health, education and transportation show unfavourable signs of strain, while childcare services fare better in Greater Montreal than in the rest of Quebec. Population aging will also reshape these pressures through 2051, without necessarily easing them.

The study’s findings have also been covered by CityNews Montreal, in the context of the ongoing provincial election campaign.

Three scenarios under review

At the core of the study is the economic modelling of three permanent immigration level scenarios, compared with the status quo (45,000 admissions per year) using Aviseo’s computable general equilibrium model:

• Slight increase (47,300 permanent immigrants)
• Moderate increase (61,000 permanent immigrants)
• Considerable increase (75,300 permanent immigrants)

The result: a slight increase would not be enough to reverse the decline of the metropolitan region’s population. Conversely, a considerable increase would help demographically but would put much greater pressure on an absorptive capacity that is already strained. According to the study, the moderate-increase scenario offers the best balance between meeting labour needs and managing reception capacity.

Thirteen recommendations

Beyond the numbers, the study offers thirteen recommendations built around four axes: a long-term strategic vision, targeting priority profiles (economic, skilled and French-speaking immigration), strengthening the absorptive capacity, and a review of the Programme de l’expérience québécoise (Quebec Experience Program) to better retain people already settled in Quebec.
A common thread runs through several of these recommendations: directing skilled economic immigration toward the sectors related to the absorptive capacity (construction, health, education and childcare). In other words, choosing immigrant workers who can help resolve the identified pressures, rather than simply adding to the demand for these services. The central message Aviseo wants to convey through this study is that the question is not only how many, but above all who and how. Better-targeted planning can support Quebec’s prosperity without multiplying pressure on public services.

Want to go further? Download Aviseo Conseil’s summary of the study on immigration and the demographic future of Greater Montreal. Please note that the full study is available in French only.