Documents
in Quebec History
Last
revised: 23 August 2000 | Documents on the Controversy Surrounding the Language
of Commercial Signs in Quebec (Bill 178) December 1988
Statutes
of Quebec, Chapter 54 [1988] (Assented to 22 December 1988) An Act
to Amend the Charter of the French Language The
Parliament of Québec enacts as follows:
- Section 58 of the Charter
of the French language (R.S.Q., chapter C-11) is replaced by the following sections :
« 58. Public signs
and posters and commercial advertising, outside or intended for the public outside,
shall be solely in French. Similarly,
public signs and posters and commercial advertising shall be solely in French
- inside commercial
centres and their access ways, except inside the establishments located there;
- inside
any public means of transport and its access ways;
- inside
the establishments of business firms contemplated in section 136;
- inside
the establishments of business firms employing fewer than fifty but more than
five persons, where such firms share, with two or more other business firms, the
use of a trademark, a firm name or an appellation by which they are known to the
public.
The
government may, however, by regulation, prescribe the terms and conditions according
to which public signs and posters and public advertising may be both in French
and in another language, under the conditions set forth in the second paragraph
of section 58.1, inside the establishments of business firms contemplated in subparagraphs
3 and 4 of the second paragraph. The
government may, in such regulation, establish categories of business firms, prescribe
terms and conditions which vary according to the category and reinforce the conditions
set forth in the second paragraph of section 58.1
58.1 Inside establishments,
public signs and posters and commercial advertising shall be in French.
They may also be both in
French and in another language, provided they are intended only for the public
inside the establishments and that French is markedly predominant.
58.2 Public signs and posters
and commercial advertising may be both in French and in another language or solely
in another language in the cases and under the conditions or circumstances prescribed
by regulation of the Office de la langue française.
- Section 59 of the said
Charter is replaced by the following section :
« 59. Sections 58 to
58.2 do not apply to advertising carried in news media that publish in a language
other than French, or to messages of a religious, political, ideological or humanitarian
nature if not for a profit motive »
- Section 60 of the said
Charter is repealed.
- Section
61 of the said Charter is replaced by the following section :
« 61. Public signs
and posters, outside, respecting the cultural activities of a particular ethnic
group in any way may be in both French and the language of that ethnic group »
- Section 62 of the said
Charter is amended
- by
replacing the first and the second paragraphs by the following paragraph :
« 62.
Outside but on the premises of commercial establishments specializing in foreign
national specialties or the specialties of a particular ethnic group, public signs
and posters may be both in French and in the relevant foreign national language
or the language of that ethnic group. »
- by replacing the word second
in the first line of the third paragraph by the word first
- Section 68 of the said
Charter is amended
- by
inserting at the beginning, the following paragraph :
« 68.
Except as otherwise provided in this section, only the French version of a firm
name may be used in Quebec »;
- by
adding at the end, the following paragraph :
« On public
signs and posters and in commercial advertising,
- a firm
name may be accompanied with a version in another language, if they are both in
French and in another language;
- a
firm name may appear solely in its version in another language, if they are solely
in a language other than French ».
- Section 69 of the said
Charter is repealed.
- Every
owner of a public sign or poster, advertisement, illuminated sign, billboard of
other advertising material that conforms with the provisions of the Charter of
the French language relating to public signs and posters and commercial advertising
as they read on 14 December 1988, and every person who has placed any of them
or caused any of them to be placed, has until 22 December 1990 to bring it into
conformity with the new provisions enacted by this Act respecting public signs
and posters and commercial advertising.
- The provisions of the Regulation
respecting the language of commerce and business (R. R. Q., 1981, C-11, r.9) made
pursuant to section 58 of the Charter of the French language, as they read on
14 December 1988, are deemed made pursuant to section 58.2 enacted by section
1 of this Act.
- The
provisions of section 58 and those of the first paragraph of section 68, enacted
by sections 1 and 6, respectively, of this Act, shall operate notwithstanding
the provisions of paragraph b of section 2 or section 14 of the Constitution
Act, 1982 (Schedule B to the Canada Act, chapter 11 in the 1982 volume of the
Acts of the parliament of the United Kingdom) and apply despite sections 3 and
10 of the Charter of human rights and freedoms (R. S. Q., chapter C-12).
- The provisions of this
Act come into force on 22 December 1988
©
1999 Claude Bélanger, Marianopolis College |