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The number of complaints received by the Quebec Office for the French Language (OQLF), up for years, reached records in 2024-2025. If it is still too early to measure the effect of the entry into force of the new display rules on 1is June, this motif is still and always an important source of complaints, notes the office.
The OQLF published earlier this month the most recent statistics on the number of complaints and denunciations received for possible breaches of the Charter of the French language or its regulations. For the period from 1is April 2024 to March 31, 2025, the office received 10,371 reports, a record.
The number of complaints has been increasingly increasing since 2017-2018; It then amounted to 2724. It was therefore an increase of 281 % in seven years.
Several factors can explain this increase, explains Nicolas Trudel, director of communications at the OQLF. “The protection of the French language has been a government priority for a few years. The subject is all the more present in public space since the adoption of the law on the official and common language of Quebec, French, in 2022, he notes.
In other words, the more we talk about the official language of Quebec, the more the OQLF receives complaints. “It testifies to the concern of the population which is growing in relation to this question, [la] protection of the French language and [le] respect for linguistic rights. »»
In 2024-2025, more than a third (36 %) of the complaints or denunciation files that have been closed led to a correction of the situation, the quarter (25 %) to an “incentive intervention” and 10 %to a warning. More than fifth (22 %) of complaints and denunciations were deemed unfounded or inadmissible. 3 % of the files led to a francization process and it was impossible to continue treatment in 4 % of cases.
A especially Montreal problem
Complaints are mostly concentrated in Montreal and in its periphery. It is a question of “commercial density”, that is to say the high number of shops in the territory, specifies Mr. Trudel.
Last year, 53 % of complaints and denunciations received targeted companies, ministries or public administration organizations located in the metropolis. The Montérégie, at 12 %, the Laurentians (4 %) and Laval (5 %) completed the portrait in the large Montreal region. In the national capital, there were 8 % of the complaints received by the Office in 2024-2025.
The OQLF prefers an “support” approach to a coercive approach, underlines Nicolas Trudel. When a breach is observed, it contacts the alleged fault in order to “support it in its efforts to make the corrections that are required to comply” to the law.
“If, as a result of our steps, the company which is presumed to be the author refuses to make the required corrections”, the office can transfer the file to the director of criminal and criminal proceedings (DPCP). It is the latter who could subsequently start prosecution. But the cases are rare: only two files have been transferred to the DPCP in the last five years. “This is proof that the support approach works,” according to Mr. Trudel.
New display rules
The 1is Last June marked the entry into force of new rules on display. They demand, among other things, that the text written in French in the public display of a trademark or a company name occupies a space “at least twice as large as that devoted to the text written in [une] other language ”. The duty On this date, on the first day of the application of the measure, many cases of non-conformity had noted on this date.
Will the new rules increase the number of complaints? “The future will tell us,” said the spokesperson for the OQLF. For the moment, “it is too early to speak of an impact on the number of complaints in relation to the display”, and although the office “monitors the situation”, it does not have specific data to measure the effect of the entry into force of the new regulations.
That said, from year to year, we see that the most frequent complaints remain the same. The three most frequent reasons are the language of service, the language of commercial documentation (for example, websites or invoices) and the language of the public and commercial display.
