‘It’s ridiculous’: Trump administration classifies Quebec’s Bill 96 as trade barrier

Quebec and Canadian politicians are reacting strongly to an American trade document on foreign trade barriers that listed Quebec’s Bill 96 – the province’s 2022 language reform – as a technical barrier to trade.

“There is no question of compromising on French,” Quebec Premier François Legault said Tuesday while in Germany.

“We won’t back down on our French-language demands,” added Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister responsible for the French language. “It’s non negotiable. Defending the French language isn’t even up for discussion; it’s just not on the table.”

Bill 96, which reinforces the province’s French-language charter, strengthens French-language requirements on product packaging. Trademarks appearing on products must be registered in Canada to avoid French translation requirements as of June 1.

“U.S. businesses have expressed concerns about the impact that Bill 96 will have on their federally registered trademarks for products manufactured after June 1, 2025, which is when the relevant provisions of Bill 96 enter into force,” the nearly 400-page document from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) reads.

“These businesses will need to review their non French language trademarks on the products’ packaging and labelling and translate into French any part of their trademark that contains a ‘generic term’ or a ‘description of the product.'”

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is accusing the United States of asking Quebec to “sacrifice” its French language in order to do business with the Americans.

“The United States would not dare ask any nation on Earth to sacrifice their language if they want to deal with the United States,” Blanchet said. “But it’s easy for Mr. Trump to say too bad for French, because quite often Canada does the same. But he wouldn’t dare do that against Germans and French and Italians.”

Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon called it yet another example of an American administration criticizing Quebec’s “linguistic specificity” as a barrier to business.

“But then, of course, the reasoning is, ‘OK, so we should all be Americans and all speak English to make sure that your multinationals don’t need to put anything in French on your product.’ So, of course, the National Assembly never agreed to that argument,” St-Pierre Plamondon said.

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The National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers “highlights significant foreign barriers to U.S. exports, U.S. foreign direct investment, and U.S. electronic commerce.”

The document says the U.S. and Canada discussed Bill 96 at the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade meeting in June 2024.

“The United States encouraged the Quebec provincial government to take into consideration business sector concerns and involve businesses in the drafting of further interpretive guidance on this law and the final regulation,” the report reads.

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the situation “ridiculous.”

“We’re never going to let a foreign government tell us what our language laws or any other laws are going to be in our country,” he said. “We would never try to tell California or Minnesota what its language rules have to be. So, there’s no reason why we would ever let the Americans change our language laws.

“It’s not a barrier. It is a rule that applies to Quebec companies, just like it does to other English-Canadian companies and American companies. So it’s an even playing field.”

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he previously warned this could happen.

“We have said before that Donald Trump was going to attack the French language and Quebec culture,” Singh said. “I said that earlier in the past week that this is something I’m worried about. And now he’s come out directly and said it. He’s going to attack the French language in Quebec.”

Carney in the crosshairs

Last week, Liberal Leader Mark Carney said, if elected, he would intervene at the Supreme Court in any challenge to Bill 96. Roberge called that position a “direct affront to Quebecers.”

On Tuesday at a campaign stop in Winnipeg, Carney said he would never “enter into negotiations with the United States on issues that impact the French language.”

“It’s never on the table,” he said.

Carney says those two positions — his willingness to intervene at the Supreme Court and not wanting to negotiate with the U.S. on French-language issues — are not contradictory, calling the former “a question for courts, for judges.”

Singh described Carney as flip-flopping on the issue, and several Quebec politicians took aim at the Liberal leader.

Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Ruba Ghazal said Carney should “mind his own business.”

Bloc Leader Blanchet said the former Bank of Canada governor was trying hard to align himself with the U.S. president.

“Mr. Carney seems to think the same thing as Mr. Trump does,” said Blanchet, whose Bloc is polling behind Carney’s Liberals in Quebec. “How could Quebecers consider even one instant placing their trust into that man? He is fighting the right for Quebecers to live in French, and the right to protect the law and the application of the law. He wants Quebecers to pay against their own bill up to the Supreme Court.

“Is he the guy to protect this law in front of Mr. Trump, which he fears because he’s afraid that if Mr. Trump is not behaving, his pretension to win the election will be jeopardized?”

Conservative Leader Poilievre echoed that criticism.

“Mr. Carney will contest the law in the courts, so he will go in the same direction as Donald Trump,” Poilievre said. “I’m not going to do that. I’m going to defend the right of the Government of Quebec to establish its own language laws and a right that I would defend for all the provinces across Canada.”

St-Pierre Plamondon accused Carney of not seeing Quebec’s “linguistic specificity” as a non negotiable.

“He disagrees and then wants to challenge Bill 96 himself,” the PQ leader said. “And we know that we find ourselves in a potential negotiation where you have Donald Trump saying, ‘I have a problem with Bill 96,’ and then Mark Carney responding, ‘Me too. So, can we talk about the automobile sector? Then we’ll settle the Bill 96 issue later.’

“You just have to understand that what Mark Carney has been saying since the beginning of his campaign is hostile to a host of legitimate positions of the Quebec National Assembly.”