Offending English Sign Contest Fizzles

One of the recurring themes of radical French language groups is that the Province of Quebec is being overrun by an army of English and immigrant scofflaws, bent on turning the pure and chaste Francophone landscape into a quagmire of English filth.

This contrived narrative is promulgated by a coterie of hysterical radicals bent on raising a false panic in order to hype a nonexistent scenario that describes the imminent decline and fall of French Quebec.
Although the idea that English signage is on the upswing and supplanting French is patently absurd, it is an idea that has gained traction, even in the non-radical community.  Anybody who has lived in Quebec and Montreal in particular for an extended period can attest that English signage is becoming as rare as a hen's tooth.
Even in Anglo towns, where the English population number upwards of 70%, signs are almost uniformly French, notwithstanding that the law allows for English as well (albeit in a smaller format)

Repeating a big lie over and over again is a tried and true formula for conditioning people to believe what is not true.
And so we hear each day that English signs are everywhere, that the situation is getting worse and worse and that the  Office québécois de la langue française is useless and cannot or will not confront the evil law-breakers.
Soon Quebec will become Anglicized....blah....blah...blah.

The Mouvement Montréal français, a radical French language group is one of the biggest promoters of this idea and in consequence has invited readers to send in examples of these illegal signs and advertisements to their web site, where they are dutifully published. The organization promises some sort of reward to the best of submissions but so far, the pickings have been decidedly slim.

It seems that even this radical group of burning language zealots cannot produce much content. After several weeks the site has posted just fifty-three examples of offensive material.
See the complete collection of offending material HERE.

Some of the examples are not even violations of the law and many are downright stupid or hilarious!

Here's some of my favourites;

Complaint Numbers 1& 2

Companies that use their corporate names on the door are especially bothersome to radicals when the name is clearly English. This practice has remained a bone of contention among militants who want all names translated into something more 'French.' By the way, the practice doesn't contravene the language law.

Complaint Numbers 11

A Westmount street sign is cited for not having  RUE or AVE under the name MELVILLE. But there's no English either, it just says MELVILLE.

  Complaint Numbers 14

In an attempt to be inclusive and demonstrate an openness towards minorities, a Caisse Populaire was denounced for placing signs saying WELCOME in many different languages.

Complaint Numbers 25

The Montreal Alouettes  were chided for having Westmount Movers as one of their sponsors. The complaint was that there was too much English in the name, again, something completely within the law. The Montreal Gazette was also cited for promoting  an English language Alouette fan web site. I'm  not sure what the complainer wants,  the English newspaper to run its web site in French  or to advertise the English web site in French?

 Complaint Numbers 26

An English only sign, pasted on a Université de Montreal door got somebody's dander up. The sign described a meeting of the 'Pattern Review' group, which after a bit of research, I determined was a an American sewing club based in Massachusetts. Apparently the group came up to Montreal for a fun weekend and rented out some meeting space from the school. Perhaps they should have hired an interpreter. Worse still, they probably ran their whole meeting in English. Call out the stormtroopers!!!

 Complaint Numbers 53

Another Caisse Populaire was the target of a complaint because a flat screen TV showed an English message. What the complainer failed to consider was that the TV toggled between English and French.

 Of the 53 complaints 13 sprung from one source, a Greek telephone directory, destined for a community that speaks  English and Greek almost exclusively. The multiple complaints were submitted by resident Anglo Basher Louis Prefontaine, who led the intrepid  pack with 17 of the 53 complaints, followed by a certain Gaetan Ledoux who complained ten times. Between the two of them, they submitted over half the complaints and as I said previously, it seems that the pickings of offending material is decidedly slim.

"While we obsess over the legality of the language of  signage, Montreal English speakers  are taking the city, district by district, based on institutional  bilingualism imposed on us by our cowardly politicians.  They are laying the foundations of a future Anglophone metropolis in the heart of Quebec, dispossessed of it's native  language."  Louis Prefontaine, Quebec language zealot.

In another complaint which had nothing to do with signage, the borough mayor of NDG was chastised for speaking to a Filipino group in English without the requisite French.  Of course Filipinos are closely aligned to the English community and speak English at home, even if their children are forced into French schools.

At any rate, many of the signs weren't even illegal at all and some of the complaints were so petty that it would be funny if not so sad.

I've already written two pieces about the The Myth of the Anglicization of Montreal  nonsense HERE and HERE.


By the way, I'm thinking of submitting this picture of an English sign which I snapped last year in the window of a government-owned SAQ, blatantly flaunting the language law.


Perhaps I can win a prize? Are Anglos even eligible?

Whadda think?