Major retailers challenge Quebec’s sign laws

MONTREAL — Several major retailers are taking the Quebec government to court over the provincial language watchdog’s insistence they modify their commercial brand names to include some French.

The six companies taking legal action include Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, Gap, Old Navy and Guess. Their lawyers are expected in Quebec Superior Court on Thursday.

Quebec’s language watchdog, The Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise, wants the retailers to change their signs to either give themselves a generic French name or add a slogan or explanation that reflects what it is they’re selling.

The changes are outlined on a website run by the language agency that gives businesses options on how to change their names. For example, Walmart, a household name that doesn’t really have a French equivalent, could change its signs to “Le Magasin Walmart.”

But retailers say the language laws have not formally been changed and they will ask the courts to decide whether the language office has the right to make new demands.

According to Section 63 of Quebec’s French Language Charter, the name of a business must be in French.

But it hasn’t generally been applied to trademarked names.

Nathalie St-Pierre, vice-president for the Retail Council of Canada’s Quebec branch says the province wants to change the rules without having modified the law.

St-Pierre says all have complied with the rest of Quebec’s language requirements for many years. She says they’re now being forced to comply with a new interpretation of an old law.

Martin Bergeron, a spokesman for Quebec’s language watchdog, would not comment on the matter as it is before the courts.