[evandyk]

You can argue that it's worth it because of the country's history and culture, but there's no question that Quebec's stringent language laws are a major internal trade barrier.

 

[picard102]

You can argue that it's worth it because of the country's history and culture, but there's no question that Quebec's stringent language laws are a major internal trade barrier.

How exactly? All products in Canada should already be in bilingual packaging.

 

[kEiThZ]

You can argue that it's worth it because of the country's history and culture, but there's no question that Quebec's stringent language laws are a major internal trade barrier.

Oh please. You ever seen the back of a packet in the EU with explanations in tons of other languages?

It's not a real barrier at all. Companies do business all over the world and they translate stuff all the time. Any company that thinks translating to French is a big problem isn't going to get very far.

 

[evandyk]

The Charter of the French Language imposes a lot more requirements on a business than translating the back of your packaging. Their language laws would be unconstitutional if they did not pre-emptively rely on the notwithstanding clause to protect them from challenge.

 

[picard102]

The Charter of the French Language imposes a lot more requirements on a business than translating the back of your packaging.

Such as? I worked at a nationwide retailer with plenty of stores in Quebec. Our only real issues came from higher shrink in QC, and legal requirements for contests.

 

[evandyk]

Here's a short summary.

Language Laws and Doing Business in Quebec | Éducaloi

The Charter of the French Language makes French the usual language of business in Quebec. Most freelancers, companies or organizations that provide products or services in Quebec, whether for profit or not for profit, have to respect the rules in the Charter or risk being fined and given other...

educaloi.qc.ca

 

[81-717]

What a weird thing to be upset about... What are you personally translating for them? How does it harm you?
Quebec isn't the only french part of Canada. It's the country's second official language.

They're the ones who act like English isn't one of the country's official languages, period. And while it doesn't harm anyone per se, it inconveniences Canadians who aren't fluent in French yet have to travel to QC for whatever reason (on the other hand, a QC'er who doesn't speak English and travels to other parts of Canada has little to worry about as most of the time there's a French translation included). At the very least they should duplicate everything in both languages, just like the rest of Canada does.

As an English speaking, I resent your ignorance of our history and disloyalty.

As an English speaking Torontonian, I'm far more loyal to the Toronto accent/slang than the British accent, so there's that.

You must be one of those Torontonians who only vacations in the US and has no idea that there are French speaking parts of Ontario a few hours drive from you.

lol you're funny, I've been to QC several times but there's not much interesting for me there (not even the Montreal metro), which is why I prefer travelling to the US (NYC subway) and Europe (same reason).

 

[lenaitch]

Such as? I worked at a nationwide retailer with plenty of stores in Quebec. Our only real issues came from higher shrink in QC, and legal requirements for contests.

What was the legislated language of business for those stores?
Assuming there was some degree of interaction with the Quebec government (their version of WSIB, tax reporting, business licencing, etc.) what was the legislated language of interaction?

 

[picard102]

They're the ones who act like English isn't one of the country's official languages, period.

The opposite. They are hyper aware english is the dominant language in Canada.

And while it doesn't harm anyone per se, it inconveniences Canadians who aren't fluent in French yet have to travel to QC for whatever reason

If you're inconvenienced by one of the countries official languages, that's on you.

 

[picard102]

What was the legislated language of business for those stores?
Assuming there was some degree of interaction with the Quebec government (their version of WSIB, tax reporting, business licencing, etc.) what was the legislated language of interaction?

French was the language we dealt in for those stores and associated regulatory requirements.

We had one french language translator in office for all non regulatory work, including HR.
A law firm provided bi lingual services for the regulatory work we engaged them for. Of which things like WSIB or licencing is mostly done online through service portals.
None of this was particularly onerous to do as a business operating in Quebec. In fact our legal teams had to do more work for operations in the other 9 provinces.

 

[picard102]

Here's a short summary.

Language Laws and Doing Business in Quebec | Éducaloi

The Charter of the French Language makes French the usual language of business in Quebec. Most freelancers, companies or organizations that provide products or services in Quebec, whether for profit or not for profit, have to respect the rules in the Charter or risk being fined and given other...

educaloi.qc.ca

Nothing in that document is overly taxing or complex. It's basically being able to provide services in french, in an area that speaks french.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Want to trade with the EU instead of USA? Consider that the European Union (EU) has 24 official languages.

Official languages

Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish.​

Most spoken languages

English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Ukrainian.​

English is included because Ireland's official languages are English and Irish (Gaeilge)

 

[kEiThZ]

They're the ones who act like English isn't one of the country's official languages, period.

Official languages only apply to dealings with the federal government and issues within federal jurisdiction. Quebec is a constitutionally unilingual French province. They have zero obligation to serve you in French. Do you understand how federalism works?

lol you're funny, I've been to QC several times but there's not much interesting for me there (not even the Montreal metro), which is why I prefer travelling to the US (NYC subway) and Europe (same reason).

Cool. Then why complain about what is happening there? It doesn't impact you much at all.

 

[kEiThZ]

Nothing in that document is overly taxing or complex. It's basically being able to provide services in french, in an area that speaks french.

Butthurt because they don't want to learn French. I became fluent recently, in my early 40s. And now routinely talk to my colleagues in French.

There's no Canada without Quebec. And there's no Quebec without French. It's that simple.

 

[picard102]

Butthurt because they don't want to learn French. I became fluent recently, in my early 40s. And now routinely talk to my colleagues in French.

There's no Canada without Quebec. And there's no Quebec without French. It's that simple.

I get it, languages are hard for some people.
If you sat me in front of two people speaking french I might have a 30% chance of knowing what they were talking about, in broad strokes.
This despite 9 years of school and having worked at the aforementioned company where I had to work in french daily for 8 years. On top of running a national awards program that is supposed to be bilingual for the last 7. Translators are a godsend.

But the image people have in their heads about doing business in Quebec re: their language laws seems so exaggerated (to be charitable).