French: T&T Supermarkets and Loblaw do it again

A little over a year after raising eyebrows in Quebec and attracting the attention of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) for non-compliance with labeling rules, the T&T supermarkets, owned by Loblaw, are doing it again.

• Also read: French: explosion in the number of complaints to the OQLF

“I just came back and it was impossible for me to be served in French,” explained JournalHélène Choquette, leaving the brand new Asian supermarket in Quartier Dix30, in Brossard, Monday morning.

“It was the same everywhere. At the fishmonger, at the butcher’s, it was in Chinese [mandarin ou cantonais] or in English only. Impossible to get anything in French, she continued. Even the messages on the intercom echoed in English and Chinese throughout the store. Never in French.”

Weston property

Founded in Vancouver thirty years ago, the Asian food distribution chain entered Quebec in December 2023, with the opening of a first store in Montreal. Last Thursday, the chain opened its second store with great fanfare, this time in Brossard, on the South Shore of Montreal.

Less than a week will have been enough before The Journal is beginning to receive testimonials from customers unhappy with the fate reserved for French in this new establishment of the Loblaw company, owned by the Weston family.

The Journal visited the site Monday afternoon. This supermarket, with an area of ​​some 5,000 square feet, is located in Brossard in premises in Quartier Dix30, a Carbonleo property also behind Royalmount, in Mont-Royal.

Complaints to the OQLF

For more than an hour, we wandered around the immense commercial area devoted almost exclusively to food, cosmetic products, and kitchen items of Asian origin or inspiration.

If the display of sections or departments of the store (fruits and vegetables, for example) is indeed in French, we have noted that it is indeed quite different for quantities of products, packaged or labeled in another language (Chinese, Japanese , Vietnamese, Korean, etc.) than French.

“It’s absurd to see this. It’s as if French and the Quebec Charter of the French Language had never existed, another client told us. There are still limits. You can be sure that I will file a complaint with the OQLF.”

The situation is all the more “serious and worrying”, in the opinion of Jean-Paul Perreault, president of the Impératif Français organization, as everyone in business knows the importance of “respecting your market”.

“By thus imposing languages ​​which are not those of the market it is courting [le français]it’s as if T&T chose to inferiorize him. It is not only an insult, but a lack of respect that should be decried.”

Last year, following the revelations of Journal on the weak presence of French on the labeling of T&T in the St-Laurent borough, in Montreal, the Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge called for citizen responsibility: “All Montrealers, regardless of their origin, must be able to live and work in French. We all have a duty to set an example by speaking it as much as possible, but also a duty to demand to be served in French when this is not the case.”

No fine yet

Questioned, the OQLF confirmed yesterday that it knew T&T well, having already been the subject of 18 formal complaints from citizens since the 1^is April 2023 with regard to “compliance of display, products that the company offers for sale as well as the language of service”.

Since then, no file concerning T&T has been filed by the OQLF with the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP). If the channel was thus able to benefit from “support” from the OQLF in its “francization approach”, T&T has not yet received any conviction or fine relating to breaches of the province’s linguistic laws.

Joined by The JournalLoblaw management declined our request for an interview on the subject. As for our request for an interview with Tina Lee, the CEO of T&T, the latter went unheeded.

▶ On Tuesday, Loblaw shares continued to grow on the Toronto Stock Exchange, closing the session at $187.39 per share, up 0.75% from the closing price the day before. Over the past year, Loblaw’s stock has increased by $64.92, or 53.01%.