I thought Canada was a bilingual country?

Question

If you travel to Vancouver British, Columbia you will notice all the highway signs are in french and english. You will notice all the packaging for food, candy, beverages are in french and english. You will also find this in Edmonton Alberta, Toronto Ontario, and anywere else in Canada ... except Quebec.

When I visited Quebec for the first time last year I was shocked to see everything in french. No english to be seen anywere. All the highway signs were in French. Most french websites related to Qubec (other than the government site) Do not offer services in english and french.

By law, dosen't Quebec have to put all the signs on the highways, and packaging in french aswell as english?

I live in the US so I don't know too much about how the bilingual thing works in Canada, but I thought if Quebec dosen't bother with the english why would Ontario, Manitoba and other provinces even bother with the french?

I just want to make it clear that I do know about what happened several years ago with Quebec and the Canadian government. My main question is, legally can they do that?

Oh and yes I do know Quebec is the french speaking province lol

Answer 1

You have nailed Canadian politics on the head my wise American friend.

One point though, In Alberta and BC I would say 90 percent of the highway signs are English only. However, anything to do with the Federal Gov't will have bilingual signs. That includes Customs at the boarder crossing, National Parks and maybe even the Trans-Canada Highway. So, I can see if you are visiting how it would seem like a lot of signs include French. In Ontario, where they have more french, and more bilingual, and more Federal Govt, and neighbour on Quebec, most signs include French.

But here are how I see 3 main points of view, there are more.

Ontario is the majority population with a minority neighbour. They are very neighbourly and accommodating. Quebec was unhappy about language, so the governments Ontario (and Quebec) were electing, made the 2 languages equal. Their utopia was a population where everyone spoke both languages, and everyone got along.

Quebec is a minority. They said bilingual was never what they wanted. That bilingual means including English, and thus losing their ability to speak French. As they are minority in the country, it could mean losing French, as everyone around them speaks English.

The west is left alienated. I would be surprised if there is a 2% French speaking population. If it is, it would be recent move as there are more new jobs in the west. It's all English, they don't deal at all with French. So it tends to be a hassle. French is pushed in school, when people have different interests. Japanese & Chinese make more sense to the demographics and economy. Spanish makes more sense if you travel the world. Top Government jobs require Bilingualizm, which generally means the Ontario Cliques keep those to themselves. Quebec French only speakers don't get those jobs, and English speaking westerners don't get them neihter.

The one thing that does have some sense in it is bilingual packaging. Say you are an US exporter, shipping to the small Canadian market. You still have to package different from your domestic product to fit Canadian packaging laws. That is different warning codes, different ingredient codes, metric weights and standardized package limits. It makes it easier to send one bilingual package out to our small market, instead of one in english and one in French. I'd say 90 % of the time. You still have the choice on what works for you. Maybe that is French on 1 side, English on the other. Maybe that is changing your product name from "Kraft Maccorni and cheese" to "Dinner La Kraft Dinner." (If you get a chance to look at the Canadian label you will see what I mean.)

Answer 2

Oh, yes very perceptive my American Amigo. What is the deal with Quebec. Okay, yes, legally everything in Canada must be bilingual. I think it must be in Quebec as well, so if it isn't they are breaking the law. Seriously. Quebec is almost like a European country in the middle of Canada. They have their own legal system compared to the rest of Canada. Also, if you are an entertainer in Quebec, you can be a HUGE star...in Quebec. It's a very unique province that really doesn't have any affiliation with English Canada, especially Western Canada. I've been to Montreal and things were bilingual and most pple spoke in English, so you must have been in Quebec City or some smaller towns in Quebec. I'm from a province far away from Quebec but i took French Immersion for 6 years and it didn't help me a damn bit. I would have been better off studying Spanish or Mandarin. I was told that speaking a second language would help me...and it never did. What a bunch of bullock. At least in the USA, English is the official language.

Answer 3

Yep! Or Mais oui, as the case may be. Canada is supposed to be a bilingual country and no one here has been able to figure out why that doesn't apply to Quebec as well. At one time, it was suggested that unless Quebec could remain all-French, it's 'frenchness' would be diluted and eventually it would become the same as all the other provinces. But that sounds pretty far out.
In actual fact, there is a third language in Canada, and that is Chinese. The Chinese population is growing rapidly, and in many towns now, you will find street signs and advertising signs in Cantonese or Mandarin.
My friend just racked up over $300 in parking fines because the signs were a) all in french, which he doesn't speak and b) there is a bylaw in Montreal which says signs don't have to be any closer than 40m - which is about 50 feet - away from the parking area, and don't even have to be on the same street! One of the infractions took place in front of the hotel where he was staying. He went out to find a ticket on his car, looked high and low for a sign and couldn't find one, went back into the hotel and asked the desk clerk about it. Her helpful comment was, "Yeah. The sign is down the alley. A lot of people get upset about that." When he asked if they didn't think it would be a good idea if the hotel warned its patrons about it, her response was one of those Gallic shrugs that more or less says, 'go away and don't bother me.'
But I digress.
Things that apply to the rest of Canada don't seem to be valid in Quebec. But we don't have a choice. The language commissioners are continually citing infractions and fining people significant amounts for violating these regulations!

Answer 4

Canada is bilingual but something about bill 101, which protects the French language. In Quebec, if you put and English sign up, the French translation must be twice as big as the English...if it's just in English you are charged and must pay a fine. About the only safe haven for English in Quebec is in Montreal, where the majority of residents are English speaking.

In the rest of Canada French is a mandatory class in schools, starting in grade 1 I think, but in Quebec there is no mandatory English.

I'm originally from Western Canada and whenever it comes to a vote for Quebec to separate it's almost 100% in favour for them to leave...but seeing it's Quebec the rest of the country's votes don't count because it's a Quebec matter. They're to afraid to separate because they loose everything. The French in Canada are just a bunch of cry babies who want their cake and eat it too.

I, personally, think the rest of Canada should just build a huge fence around Quebec, take away the Canadian dollar, health care, military and the funding and let them go their own way...

Answer 5

OK, I live in Quebec, so let's first make a few things clear: We are not stupid. Half of us do NOT want to seperate from Canada and are proud of this country. Every legal documents in Quebec are available in both French and English. starting next year, students in French schools will be having ESL classes starting in the first grade (until this year they started in the third grade) and most people in Quebec will speak English very well.

About the signs. Being the only officially French speaking province in North America (except for small regions in Louisiana and western Canada) the Quebec government made laws to forbid signs in English. This was done as one of the many efforts to preserve our language and culture and not be assmilated by the huge influence of English bombarding (figuratively) us from the rest of Canada and the US. All the legal information about the law can be found on wikipedia if you type "loi 101" in the search engine.

Visit us again, Quebec is absolutely beautiful, and full of history.

Answer 6

Quebec was mainly settled by the French years ago, therefore, French is the main language as a result. I never knew that everything was in French only there. Seems pretty unfair to the rest of us. I live in the Province of Newfoundland, which is the most English speaking province in all of Canada, and everything here is in both English and French.

Answer 7

well I kinda disagree with your comments. In airports, government buildings and a few tourist places, the signs are in french and english in BC, outside of those places, signs are not in French and English. Infact there are lots of signs that aren't in either language. It would be far easier to find a (commercial) sign that was in Chinese, Korean, or Hindi, then it would to find a sign in french! BC is different from the other provinces, there are hardly any french speaking people here. I speak french, and I have only used it 1 time in 5 years- as a result I am slowly losing my french as there isn't anybody to talk to! But you are right about the food packaging, it needs to be bilingual, that is federally regulated- meaning that the individual provinces don't have any say about it.

But to answer your question the signs in quebec are in french to preserve the french language. English is so pervasive that within a few generations, French wouldn't be spoken in Quebec if it weren't for the french language laws. As a result there is no equivalent law pertaining to English, as it is the dominant language and isn't likely to be lost.

Answer 8

Quebec has separtists (if I spell it right), and they ususally don't obey the rules... well there isn't any rule for that. I live in Canada and Quebec was trying to separate from us several years ago. You'll also see that there is no Canadian flag in Quebec, only Quebec flag.

You'll also noticed that other than the city Montreal, people barely speak English.
Also, on Canada Day, Quebec is the only province that does not celebrate. I think their official day of celebration is French's National day I guess.

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Answer 9

Hi, I disagree with some of my companions. Canada isn't really a bi-lingual country in that very few people speak both languages. It is a bilingual country in that there are 2 official languages.

This all happened back when English speaking conquerers realized that they couldn't logistically expell all of the French speaking population, and also that they couldn't really manage to force them to change, so in our constitution they made it possible for the Francophones to retain their language and their culture.

As for the different laws, all provinces have a large degree of soveriegnty to create their own laws.

I live in BC, and almost nobody speaks or understands French here (with the exception of the few Francophone communities). French language training starts at grade 5, which is much to little and too late to do any good. Not to mention that it is usually taught by non-French speaking teachers as a result of the lack of French teachers.

For this reason, I have my daughter in French Immersion school, and already at nine years old she knows more French than I learned by the end of grade 12.

Answer 10

The rest of Canada is proud to be Canadian. What a fantastic country. Quebec on the other hand (and I dont mean everybody) wants to seperate and be their own country. If Canada is the Mother, Quebec as the child. Canada needs to give Quebec a darn good spanking.