Musical instrument retailers in Quebec are raising concerns about the potential business impacts of the province's language law reform.
Come June 2025, Article 51 of the province's Bill 96 requires that labels on products sold in the province — from guitar amplifiers to groceries — include a French translation of "inscriptions on the product, on its container or wrapping, or on a document or object supplied with it, including the directions for use and the warranty certificates."
Adopted by the provincial government in June 2022, Bill 96 was passed to "affirm that the only official language of Quebec is French" to combat the decline of its use in the province.
"Quebec is well renowned for the culture that's Quebec and that's not gonna be helped by not having any music stores," Steve Long, president of national retailer Long & McQuade Musical Instruments, told CityNews.
Long told CityNews that despite being able to make packaging of Long & McQuade distribution brands compliant with Bill 96 stipulations, "The problem is when you go in an American company, a German company, a Japanese company that operates on the whole world in English and say to them, 'By the way you have to make something in French.'"
Chantal Bouchard, a spokesperson for Quebec's French language office, told CBC News that inscriptions on packaging can be in both French and another language, so long as the other language is not more visible, larger or more frequent than the one in French.
"If the exceptions do not apply and suppliers cannot translate the packaging at the source, it is up to the company to ensure that the products they distribute in the Quebec market comply with the law," Bouchard said in an email.
Long illustrates the challenge of the language law as it pertains to reeds for wind instruments, which come in myriad different varieties, explaining to CityNews, "In an industry like ours, which is such a specialized industry, with such a low volume of product, it's just not practical. Somebody will bring up their vendor for the reeds. There are hundreds of versions of their reeds, because every musician wants something slightly different. So how do you make 200 packages for something that they may not even ever sell in Quebec?
"People say you can shop online, but that's not how music works," he continued. "People going to see products and they get inspired. They see something and they go, 'Wow I didn't know these things existed,' and they take up music and then they move forward in their life and very often make that a career. Which is something that will not be happening if there's no music store in Quebec."