Quebec’s Charter of French Language establishes French as the official language of Quebec and, accordingly, the rights of every person in Quebec to do business in French within that province. These language laws can have powerful implications for a franchisor’s decision to enter the province and how to operate there.
In particular, whether the franchisor keeps a place of business in Quebec or has employees in Quebec will be determinative of its language obligations, and, certainly, all of their French franchisees will be subject to the Charter.
Posters and signs can be in both official languages, but French must be markedly predominant, meaning the size of the French letters must be larger, and there must be more French signs and posters than English ones. Similar rules apply with respect to menus, catalogues and brochures of products and services.