French language complaints and inspections surge in Quebec

People walk by a BulkBarn store in Montreal, Sunday, June 1, 2025. French-language rules in Quebec require French to be the dominant language on all store signs. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)

Quebec’s office for the protection of the French language carried out close to 10,000 inspections this past year as the province ramped up its crack down on businesses that fail to comply with its language law.

A total of 9,813 inspections were carried out between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025, representing a 47 per cent increase from the 2022 and 2023 period.

The figures were revealed in the office’s most recent annual report made public this week.

The inspections came in response to a record number of complaints as well as surveillance efforts taken by the office at its own initiative.

Over last April and this March, a total of 10,371 complaints were brought to the office. The figure represents a nearly 14 per cent increase from the 2023 to 2024 period — and a close to 140 per cent increase from five years ago, according to the language watchdog.

“This record number reflects the public’s growing concern over the protection of the French language and the respect of their linguistic rights,” the annual report noted.

Those complaints primarily came in response to not being served in the French language, in stores or elsewhere, and commercial business’s failure to use the province’s official language on their websites and signage. In nearly 94 per cent of cases complaints prompted corrections by the businesses found to be in violation of the law.

The number of complaints over French not being used by staff in stores or other public services in particular has grown significantly, the office reported, representing 40 per cent of all complaints received, up from five years ago when they took up 25 per cent of them.

The office’s expenses totalled $49 million this past year. That’s more than double what it spent in its 2017 to 2018 fiscal year, before Premier François Legault’s government came into power in October of 2018.

Much of those expenses went toward the handling of complaints, the language watchdog reported. A significant amount of resources were also devoted to ensure business’s compliance with a new language law in the province, it noted.

The year prior the language watchdog’s expenses totalled $44 million.

Surveillance remains a high priority for the language watchdog. As of this year it has been conducting a widescale operation targeting commercial business in the greater Montreal area, setting a goal to carry out 1,200 inspections by March 31, 2026.

The operation comes in response to new requirements aimed at businesses that came into effect earlier this year. Under the updated language law, French must now take up twice as much space as other languages on storefront signs. These requirements also apply to advertisements.

The law also placed new demands on the way French is incorporated in product packaging, and enforced that businesses with at least 25 employees use French as the primary language in the workplace. Previously the law only applied to businesses with at least 50 employees.

As of March 31, a total of 14,366 businesses in Quebec had registered with the language watchdog to assure it had undertaken a “francization” process within its workforce, up from 11,509 registered at the same time the year prior.

Businesses in violation of Quebec’s language law can be fined $3,000 to $30,000 per day for a first infraction, and up to $90,000 per day for a third offence.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 12, 2025.