This article is part of our series on recent amendments to Quebec’s Charter of the French Language under Bill 96. Click here to read our prior articles on the draft regulations published in January: Part 1: Inscriptions on Products and Part 2: Public Signage and Commercial Advertising.

After months of suspense following the publication of the draft regulations in January 2024, the final version of the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business (the “Regulation”), enacted under the Quebec Charter of the French Language (the “Charter”), was finally published on June 26, 2024 and will come into force on June 1, 2025, with the exception of the new obligations relating to contracts of adhesion, which come into force on July 11, 2024.^[1] 

Businesses and practitioners alike faced some disappointment with the publication of the draft Regulation, feeling that it had missed the opportunity to clarify many ambiguous provisions of Bill 96, and hoping that the final Regulation would account for and sufficiently address the concerns they had raised during the consultation period. Although this final version of the Regulation represents a victory for some, for many others, this represents the crystallization of a number of operational concerns that first began with the introduction of Bill 96 two years ago.

Product inscriptions

The majority of changes relating to product inscriptions have been withdrawn from the Regulation for now, although the Minister of the French Language has indicated that we should receive further updates in this domain by autumn. This represents a temporary win for manufacturers and product distributors, who at this time will not have to translate the inscriptions necessary for the use of the product in another language (e.g. “on/off”) engraved in the products. The final Regulation also withdraws the provisions from the draft Regulation regarding product inscriptions displayed for the user using an integrated software.

There is good news for trademark owners however, as the Regulation specifies that although generic terms and product descriptions included in a trademark in another language (generally English) must be translated to French, the name of the enterprise and the name of the product as sold are exempt from this obligation. The provisions setting out obligations regarding the size of such translations have also been removed.

Unexpected return of the recognized trademarks exception

There was every reason to believe that Bill 96 would put an end to the exception for “recognized trademarks” within the meaning of the Trademarks Act, which has historically permitted Canadian trademarks, including unregistered ones, to appear solely in English on product inscriptions and commercial signage. In order to address concerns raised about the Canadian Intellectual Property Office’s current processing times for trademarks applications, the draft Regulation from January went as far as to provide that the trademarks for which applications were pending would be considered registered for the purposes of this assessment and would therefore meet the new requirements of the Charter.

However, this presumption was removed from the final Regulation, which reintroduced the exception for “recognized” trademarks and allows them to appear on products inscriptions and public signage without being accompanied by a French translation. Unfortunately, we can expect the Office Québécois de la langue française (the “OQLF”) to adopt the same guidelines as before regarding “common law” trademarks, which is to say that the OQLF is not in a position to assess whether such a trademark can benefit from the exception, and instead potentially referring this question to the courts.

Public signage and commercial advertising

Marked predominance of French

It is in this area, which has always been important to the OQLF, that the government is poised to strike with greatest impact by holding firm to its initial positions. The final Regulation affirms the requirement that French matter on public signage must now be “markedly predominant”, in other words, the space dedicated to French text must be at least twice as large as the content in English including in the case of public signage visible from the outside of a building.

The Regulation further confirms that, in order to ensure the “marked predominance” of French on public signage visible from the outside of a building, a trademark in English must be accompanied by terms in French, in particular by generic terms, by product or service descriptions, or by a slogan. This list seems to indicate that the current possibility of accompanying a trademark with any other terms or mentions, with a priority given to information about products or services to the benefit of consumers or people who frequent the premises, may no longer be an option in meeting the “marked predominance” threshold.

Dynamic signage

The final Regulation introduces the notion of “dynamic signage” which allows text to alternate between French and English. The new requirement prescribes that the French text on all dynamic signage must be visible at least twice as long as the text in English.

No additional relief period

The requirements regarding public signage come into force on June 1, 2025 with no additional relief period being granted for the implementation of the necessary changes. It is worth remembering that a large number of establishments have already expended significant sums to come into compliance with the previous obligations regarding public signage that came into force in 2016 (with a 3-year relief period being granted at that time).

This blog post is not an exhaustive summary of the changes put forward by the final Regulation – rather, it seeks to highlight the main positions taken by the Government of Quebec in this area. For any questions you may have regarding the Regulation, we invite you to contact a member of our team.

[1] O.C. 1000-2024 - Regulation to amend mainly the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business Charter of the French language https://www.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/gazette/pdf_encrypte/lois_reglements/2024A/106924.pdf