In English, But Not On My Fridge!

In an interesting turn of events, the Québec Minister responsible for the application of the Charter of the French language (the Charter) has recently published in the Gazette officielle du Québec, a draft regulation that proposes to amend the "Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business" (the regulation). The proposed draft regulation aims to limit the scope of an important exception to Québec's product labelling requirements.

Under the Charter, text on all labels, products, or documents accompanying them, must be in French. The Charter allows for bilingual product labelling, provided that no language is afforded greater importance than French. The regulation provides various exceptions to this and other product packaging and labeling rules — most notably the exception whereby information on a product may be exclusively in a language other than French provided the product comes from outside the province and the information is engraved, baked or