Just 18 per cent of non-governmental signs in both official languages

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By Brent Mazerolle
Times & Transcript Staff

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It may or may not be surprising that the self-declared "Acadian City" of Dieppe is wrestling with the question of whether or not to force Dieppe businesses to include French and English on all their interior and exterior signage by way of a municipal bylaw.

But what is more surprising is that Dieppe has more bilingual commercial signs than the neighbouring City of Moncton, which was Canada's first officially bilingual city.

With 80 per cent of commercial signs in Moncton English only and two per cent in French only, a mere 18 per cent of businesses in the bilingual city have bilingual signage, or less than one out of every five.

Gérard Snow, the chairman of the Conseil pour l'amenagement du français au Nouveau Brunswick and Annette Boudreau, chairwoman of the CAFNB sector committee on commercial signs, would like to change that.

As part of an organization aimed at better integrating French into New Brunswick communities, they were before Moncton city council recently to talk about results of a study they conducted late last year.

"Since New Brunswick has been officially bilingual since 2002, it seemed important to us to see if commercial signage reflected this bilingual character," Boudreau told council. Citing academic studies that have found it's important for citizens to recognize themselves in signage, she also noted it's important for visitors to a bilingual city to find bilingual signs and said the benefits are economic as well as symbolic.

The study looked at all the businesses along key segments of the city's three main commercial arteries, Main Street from King to High, St. George Street from Church to Vaughan Harvey, and Mountain Road from Université to Mapleton.

The second part of their work was a telephone survey that found 7 out of 10 Moncton residents believed municipal governments should create incentives or put pressure on businesses through a bylaw to have bilingual signage.

The CAFNB recommended the council, "thoroughly explore all options that would promote the use of both official languages in commercial signs," including enacting bylaws similar to those in a few Ontario municipalities where, for example, such bylaws apply to new businesses only. They also recommended that a linguistic support service be established to help businesses translate their signs.

Snow suggested that before bylaws be drafted to force compliance, there could be other encouragements offered instead.

Councillor-at-large Pierre Boudreau noted that Lafayette, Louisiana, for instance, has its signs in unilingual French, which has proven a tourist draw by giving the American city a "certain je ne sais quoi" and drawing attention to what makes it stand apart from most other American communities.

Ward 1 Councillor Paulette Thériault applauded the work of the CAFNB, but urged caution in the always sensitive realm of legislating language.

"You have to be careful. I lived in Montréal in the '80's with Bill 101 and I don't think we want to re-live those days here in New Brunswick. I think there are ways to proceed, though."

Similarly, Ward 2 Councillor Nancy Hoar expressed concern that talk of "encouraging" bilingual signage could too easily become talk of legally "requiring" bilingual signage.

Ward 3 Councillor Daniel Bourgeois was curious to know how many Moncton businesses that have started up since the city's official designation in 2002 have bilingual signs, but that measure of bilingualism's progress was not immediately available.

Moncton council does not make any motions in response to public presentations, so there was no motion made whether to act or not act on the CAFNB's recommendations.