Will Sunday musicians and virtuosos soon come face to face with bare shelves in their favorite store? Major instrument retailers in Quebec fear the worst if the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) maintains its registration requirements to issue its francization certificates.
What you need to know
- Musical instrument retailers sell many specialty products in English only;
- Requests to suppliers for packaging and documents to be translated go unheeded;
- The OQLF judges that retailers cannot use this reason to be exempt from article 51 of the Charter;
- Law 96 provides for sanctions for each day on which an offense is noted.
This is because the majority of their stocks contravene article 51, which provides that “any inscription on a product, on its container or on its packaging, on a document or object accompanying this product, including the instructions for use and warranty certificates, must be drawn up in French.
You only need to walk the aisles of a musical instrument retailer for five minutes to see the impasse. “The inscription on the products, on the packaging, is a disaster,” observes Sébastien Caza, manager of the Long & McQuade branch in Vaudreuil-Dorion.
PHOTO MARIKA VACHON, THE PRESS
Most of the stock sold at Long & McQuade includes English words.
You also have everything in the box: manuals, warranty papers, etc. Then there are all the controls on the instruments or accessories themselves.
Sébastien Caza, of Long & McQuade
On June 26, Quebec decided to postpone the obligation to translate into French an inscription linked to the use of a product even when it is “engraved, baked or encrusted in the product itself” . But in an interview with the 98.5 FM station the same day, the Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, said he wanted to return to the charge by the 1er June 2025.
PHOTO MARIKA VACHON, THE PRESS
French inscriptions on guitar string packaging are extremely rare.
No more “TONE” buttons on electric guitars, “TREBLE” and “BASS” controls on amplifiers, “EFFECT” and “PEAK” on mixing consoles or even “FAST” or “LEVEL” on keyboards. ? If this happens, “most stores in the area will have to close their doors,” worries Steve Long, president of the manufacturer and distributor Yorkville Sound and co-founder of Long & McQuade stores. “Hopefully the government will come to its senses. »
The challenge of packaging
Beyond the inscriptions themselves, most suppliers use monolingual packaging for their entire international catalog. In the guitar strings section, for example, D’Addario, Ernie Ball, Elixir and other popular products are only displayed in English.
PHOTO MARIKA VACHON, THE PRESS
Inscriptions on instruments should be affected by Bill 96, according to Quebec’s intention.
“There are Americans who don’t even know where Quebec is,” observes Christian Nantel, president of Nantel Musique, which has a storefront in Montreal and Laval. “Are companies in the United States or Japan that distribute all over the world going to make products in French? », he asks without waiting for a response.
Mr. Nantel, French-speaking and Francophile, makes it a point of honor not to install English-speaking posters supplied by American manufacturers like Gibson and Fender in his stores. But aiming for the instruments, the accessories and their packaging themselves, “forget it,” he lets it go. “With globalization, it’s going to be very difficult. »
PHOTO MARIKA VACHON, THE PRESS
The Nantel Musique branch in Montreal
For the moment, Long & McQuade and other companies with 25 or more employees operate “under the umbrella of a francization program from the Office québécois de la langue française,” explains the manager of the Vaudreuil-Dorion branch. , Sébastien Caza. But he fears that without a plan B, orders and sanctions will be inevitable. Under Law 96, a merchant risks as many infractions and fines as the number of days he contravenes the law.
“We are actively working with our suppliers and manufacturers so that they translate their products into French, but the refusal and infeasibility rate is close to 100%,” wrote Long & McQuade in a letter sent last March to Minister Roberge and at the OQLF.
PHOTO MARIKA VACHON, THE PRESS
That English words are written on this console.
The company notes that all of Yorkville Sound’s in-house products, owned by the Long family, are in the process of being francized. It also emphasizes having devoted a huge amount of money and resources to translating its database, its website, thousands of documents as well as software.
We make changes to everything over which we have control, but we must not have the responsibility on our shoulders for companies that reject their obligations out of hand.
Excerpt from Long & McQuade’s letter
The brand fears that it will not be able to receive its francization certificate at the end of its program, which expires on December 31, 2024. The retailer is therefore requesting an exception to article 51 for certain specialized products.
“The refusal of a supplier to translate the packaging of its products at the source does not constitute a reason authorizing the sale of non-compliant products since it is up to the company to ensure that the products it offers to sales on the Quebec market comply with the Charter,” insisted a director of francization of the OQLF in an email response to Long & McQuade at the end of last July.
No foreign instrument manufacturer, out of the ten that we contacted, agreed to answer our questions.
Solutions that are slow
“This is a problem for music stores, but also for many retailers of specialized or hyper-specialized products,” notes Michel Rochette, president of the Quebec section of the Retail Council of Canada. “It’s rare that we are able to modify, for a few players, a production line intended for the entire planet. »
Mr. Long, of the Yorkville Sound company – its distribution catalog includes brands like Gibson, Epiphone and Samson – estimates that the Canadian market represents approximately 3% of the world market, “which makes Quebec a market of 0, 6%.”
Would it be possible, therefore, to affix stickers in French to the terms in English? In addition to logistical challenges, such a modification risks compromising the safety standards of certain electronic devices, for example in relation to fire risks, indicates Sébastien Caza, of Long & McQuade.
If the OQLF decides to apply article 51 forcefully, it will be up to retailers to remove a large quantity of products from their shelves or take the risk of accumulating financial penalties based on complaints and warnings.
Amazon, big winner?
“If there are no changes to the draft regulation [sur les inscriptions]large companies will sell their products in all stores in the United States, in the rest of Canada, but not in Quebec, because it is not a big enough market,” worries Patrick Turbide, co-owner of Musique Depot, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. “Here, manufacturers will go through Amazon. » This fear is shared by all the retailers we spoke with. “It’s still the smallest who will pay” while the giants will be left alone, fears Christian Nantel, of the boutiques of the same name. “Everything that disappears from the shelves will remain available online,” agrees Michel Rochette of the Retail Council of Canada. “And we know well that sites without borders do not respect the same rules. »