Quebec’s language office has ordered a Gatineau café to write its Instagram posts in French or face consequences — but the owner says she will fight back.
Petites Gamines, which describes itself as a “neurospicy woman-run coffee shop and bakery” in the downtown Hull area, received a letter from the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) on Wednesday saying they’d received a complaint about commercial posts on the company’s Instagram account in English.
The language watchdog asked the cafe to ensure that future posts were made in French.
“We are counting on you to now take the necessary measures to conform to the law,” the French-language letter concluded, adding that if further complaints were received further action would be taken.
‘Kind of revolting’
The Petites Gamines Instagram account then posted the letter with the comment in English, “What in the Quebec fascism is going on”.
Owner Gabrielle Sexton said she’s not ready to comply with the order, noting that her establishment serves people in French, has physical signage in French and runs a Facebook page entirely in French.
“I find it kind of revolting the idea that our government can make us comply for social media,” she told CBC.
“My business is on the border with Ottawa. A lot of our customers are anglophone. And the Quebec government has been absolutely petulant when it comes to the language laws.”
Sexton said the café has posted in English on Instagram for nine years without issue.
“Our demographic on Instagram is mostly anglophone … like ninety per cent of the people that follow us,” she said. “We’ve always posted in English, and the Facebook page that we have for the café is only in French. And it’s always been like that.”
French is the official language of Quebec, and public signs and commercial advertising in the province must generally be in French, though other languages can be used alongside.
But Sexton said the law is vaguely worded when it comes to posts on social media and that requiring bilingual posting online is onerous on small businesses.
In a French-language statement to CBC, the OQLF said they’d informed the café about how complaints are handled and that in some cases those complaints can make their way to the prosecutors’ office “if a company refuses to make the necessary corrections to comply with the law.”
“This is not the case with this café,” they added. “The complaint file is also closed.”
Using both languages ‘right thing to do’
Whether social media posts are covered by the law remains a grey area, according to Allen Mendelsohn, a lawyer specializing in internet law who teaches at McGill University.
“The OQLF has determined that social media posts do fit into that clause of similar publications, but no court to my knowledge has made that determination,” he said.
But given the potential costs of a legal challenge, Mendelsohn has advised clients in similar situations to comply with the office and post promotional materials bilingually.
“From a politesse — to use the French word — perspective, promoting your business in both official languages when you’re in Quebec is the right thing to do,” he said.
It is difficult to discern how this little business’s social media posts in English could have any adverse or negative effect on the French language at all. – Michael Bergman
But lawyer Michael Bergman, who specializes in constitutional and human rights issues, said that while the wording of the law is clear, its application in this instance appears draconian.
“It’s obvious that to a thinking person, this is not only overreach, overbroad and overkill — it doesn’t really make any rational sense,” he said. “It is difficult to discern how this little business’s social media posts in English could have any adverse or negative effect on the French language at all.”
He concluded: “The OQLF has certainly earned their moniker as the language police, but that is actually their function.”
Sexton, meanwhile, has changed her cafe’s Instagram handle to kleingorenmadchen and begun posting in German.