Alexandre Fallon
Sep 21, 2022
Osler’s Alexandre Fallon, a partner in the Litigation practice and advisor on regulatory and statutory compliance with the Québec Charter of the French Language, recently spoke with CBC News about the impact of the amendments commonly referred to as Bill 96.
Among other things, Alexandre explained how the passage of Bill 96 introduces different requirements for retailers that were not initially included in Bill 101.
If originally, Bill 101 ensured that retailers in Québec had to provide websites in French, consumers were limited in their language rights with the sole possibility of filing a complaint to the Office québécois de la langue française. However, with Bill 96, consumers can now take serious legal action against enterprises.
Regarding this modification, Alexandre stated, "It's really that innovation, if you will … that is causing a lot of companies to re-evaluate the risk of doing business in Québec."
He also mentioned that consumers are now allowed to sue a business that is not physically established in the province of Québec, which can lead them to re-evaluate their entire service offering: "Unfortunately, Québec is not the biggest market in the world so the cost of developing a French solution across the entirety of their operation, that's quite an expensive proposition."
Read Simon Nakonechny’s article, American company says it will stop shipping products to Québec over new language law, published on September 21, 2022, on CBC News.