It seems like your classmates are thinking of Jacques Cartier's second voyage, which occurred in 1535-36 (his first voyage was in 1534, but he didn't reach what would become Montreal that time). During the second voyage, he reached Hochelaga, a large Laurentian* community. While Cartier spent some time among the people of Hochelaga, he didn't set up a permanent base of operations there. He lacked a decent translator and soon returned to Stadacona (present-day Quebec City), where he spent the winter with people he could communicate with (having abducted two citizens of Stadacona on the first voyage). But other than living in his ship for a few months on the outskirts of Stadacona, he didn't establish any long-term settlement there either. In 1642, the French came to permanent settle the Montreal area (after having a trading post there for a couple decades).

*The Laurentians were an Iroquoian people who populated the St. Lawrence River. We don't know what they called themselves, or even if they recognized themselves as a single people as we do in historical hindsight. Following Cartier's second voyage, there were a series of wars in the area, and most of the Laurentian population merged with either the Wendat north of Lake Ontario or the Haudenosaunee south of Lake Ontario.