Articles

LaSalle, Lachine and Le Sud-Ouest each top the rankings depending on which metric you pick. Three ways to read the housing inspections, and three different structural causes behind each ranking.

Since January 2024, Montreal has been systematically inspecting rental buildings with 6 or more units in vulnerable neighbourhoods. 1,932 buildings have already been visited. The public dataset - a first - offers an initial portrait of the housing stock: pervasive exterior deterioration, modest penalties, unfavourable comparison with Toronto - and reveals where the program could gain in effectiveness.

At just 8,735 hectares, the Jacques-Cartier watershed records Quebec's highest phosphorus load - 71.1 kg/ha, 31% above the provincial average. A hidden agricultural paradox near Quebec City.

In 2022-2023, patients aged 75 and over accounted for just 14.9% of Quebec ER visits - but 30.3% of stretcher patients. Over four years, their visits jumped 29.6%, 2.5 times faster than total visits. In the regions aging most rapidly, this demographic pressure compounds an already overloaded hospital system.

Saint-Jérôme Hospital records a 37.3% overcrowding rate in 2025-2026 - placing it among Quebec's five worst general emergency rooms. In 2022, average stretcher stay peaked at nearly 30 hours. The Laurentides region ranks 2nd in Quebec for wait times. A problem documented since at least 2016.

In 2025-2026, Laval (32%), Laurentides (31.4%) and Outaouais (30.7%) record higher emergency room overcrowding rates than Montreal (25.9%). A paradox explained by two decades of population growth without proportional hospital investment.

Montreal had 67,887 non-market housing units in 2024 - but 67% were built before 2000. The 2010s produced 6,849 units, three times fewer than the 22,137 built in the 1980s. Since 1994, HLM construction has effectively stopped. Meanwhile, 14,314 households wait an average of 5 years for social housing.

Suspended solids discharged by Quebec's major industries into waterways dropped by half between 2006 and 2023. This improvement was driven 87% by the pulp and paper sector, historically one of the province's biggest polluters.

In 2023, Quebec's municipal sewer systems overflowed 44,945 times - an average of 123 untreated sewage discharges into rivers every single day. Montérégie accounts for nearly a quarter of all events, but Mauricie and Gaspésie bear the heaviest burden per capita.

In 2024, ten industrial facilities emitted 51% of all GHGs covered by Quebec's carbon market. Leading the ranking: the Port-Daniel cement plant, whose emissions match the entire city of Trois-Rivieres.