This is the story of a francophone who decided to exchange the points accumulated on his National Bank credit card for a laptop computer. A mundane transaction like thousands of it is. Except that, in his case, it turned into a linguistic battle. The retired surgeon wanted his new MacBook Air, from Apple, to be equipped with a French keyboard.
Rosaire Vaillancourt had a lot of points on her World Elite Mastercard. Enough to get a laptop that requires 231,140. In September, he decides to proceed with the transaction online, but finds that he cannot choose the keyboard language. So he picked up the phone and contacted the National Bank to find out how to get a keyboard in his mother tongue.
From what he understood, this was the first time customer service had faced this issue. An attendant even told him that French-speaking keyboards did not exist.
It was very poor knowledge of computer products, and especially the tenacity of his interlocutor when it comes to the rights of francophones. Rosaire Vaillancourt asked to speak to another, more senior employee, who finally assured him that he would specify the keyboard language in his order.
PHOTO PATRICE LAROCHE, THE SUN
Rosary Vaillancourt
“I obviously know that a keyboard can be programmed in any language, but it is very useful, all the same, when the physical marking of the keys corresponds to this programming”, he says.
Less than a week later, Rosaire Vaillancourt receives his new computer. This one is in a brown box that does not specify the keyboard language. He doesn’t dare open it to check, for fear of not being able to turn it over.
He contacts Apple with the serial number. But the manufacturer cannot answer his question. He then turned to a Montreal company, Helix Global Solutions, whose name appeared on the box. This rewards program manager then confirmed to him that despite his precautions, he had received a computer without the é, ù and à keys.
After talking to customer service, the resident of the Quebec City region receives an email explaining that the seller, “after several attempts”, was not “able to find the inventory for the correct MacBook” . Helix Global Solutions (whose website is unilingual English) therefore sends him a return slip, and promises him a computer in the language of Molière.
The long-awaited MacBook Air finally ships in November. After Rosaire Vaillancourt, resourceful, had himself scrambled. And after he wrote to the President of the National Bank, Louis Vachon. Frustrated that a francophone would be served by a francophone bank headquartered in Montreal, he was keen to denounce the situation.
You can have an English MacBook Air delivered in less than a week by Rewards à la carte, but you have to fight and insist on having one, at least I hope, with a keyboard. [français]. It would be positive for the National Bank to show diligence and above all a willingness to treat its French-speaking and English-speaking clients equally.
Rosary Vaillancourt
The answer came from National Bank’s Vice-President Communications and Social Responsibility, Claude Breton. Take a deep breath.
“By presuming our bad faith, you will help fuel polarization and social fragmentation. At the risk of disappointing you, we first believe in dialogue, respect and living together. And that is what we will continue to do, ”he wrote in an email on November 8.
I don’t know if it was the linguistic soap opera provoked by the unilingual English-speaking president of Air Canada a few days earlier that colored the particular tone of this response. But to speak of “social fragmentation” seems a little strong to me.
Wasn’t Rosaire Vaillancourt within his rights to demand that a Quebec bank give him a computer with a keyboard for French speakers?
A few days ago, the Rewards à la carte site, where you can redeem your National Bank points for gifts, allowed you to choose the language of the MacBook Air keyboard. This is something settled, it looks like. Rosaire Vaillancourt does not dare to claim that he is at the origin of this change.
I asked Claude Breton, from the National Bank, what had happened. One of his colleagues replied to me by email: “I validated and the choice to order a keyboard in French (Canada) has always been possible, but the information was not specified on the website. of the Rewards Plan. We have since made the correction using a drop-down menu on the site. Language preference could however be mentioned over the phone.
This story shows us that beyond the laws supposed to protect French in Quebec, you often have to fight your own little battles as an individual. Even against a Quebec bank, run by a francophone.