People are protesting against Bill 96 in Montreal on May 26. Graham Hughes / The Canadian Press
Quebec’s largest-scale change in language law in nearly half a century has alarmed local technology companies in the province, whose leaders say increasing demands on immigrants and businesses to use French threatens to cause enormous and lasting economic damage.
Leaders of 37 Quebec-based technology companies are calling for a freeze on controversial language legislation, Bill 96, until Prime Minister Francois Lego’s government introduces French language training and other tools businesses need to comply with. .
Without this support, executives say, the best talent in the industry will simply not move to Quebec, and provincial companies will transfer some of their future investment and staff elsewhere.
“If the best and brightest innovators, technologists and business builders gravitate to Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver and Halifax instead of Montreal and Quebec City, it will cause lasting damage to the economic prosperity of our province,” the leaders said in an open letter to Mr. Legault, which they released on Tuesday. “It’s already happening, but it’s not too late to change course.”
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The warning is one of the most significant so far from the business community about legislation that will affect a wide range of everyday life in Quebec, from how people receive medical care to the way courts work. The fact that the leaders of some of the fastest growing companies in the province are ready to speak publicly about it suggests that Mr Lego’s government, which is now preparing to win re-election in October, has not responded to concerns about the possible consequences of a bill 96.
Executives include French-speaking speakers such as Luis Tetou of enterprise software firm Coveo Solutions Inc. CVO-T; Eric Boyko of Stingray Digital Group Inc. RAY-AT; and Germain Lamonde, of EXFO Inc., a provider of telecommunications test equipment and software in Quebec City. In the letter, they say they are not against the spirit of the law, but call for better planning to ensure that the law does not create more problems than it solves.
Several of companies whose leaders object to the law enforcement have received funding from the province, or through tax credits, or through the government division of Investissement Québec, which provides subsidies, capital injections and loans. Others have received venture capital from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the public giant for pension management in the province.
“This is an existential crisis for technology companies in Quebec,” said Ben Bergen, president of the Council of Canadian Innovators, which has 19 members who signed the letter. “As the government moves forward with this strict restriction, they are indeed potentially hitting Quebec’s technological ecosystem.
The Quebec government passed Bill 96 in late May in an attempt to correct the language pendulum, which it said is moving too far away from the use and acceptance of French in everyday life. The new legislation includes measures to make French “noticeably predominant” on billboards and forces companies with 25 to 49 employees to meet their French certification obligations according to the same strict standards that previously applied to companies with 50 to 99 employees. .
Under the new law, the government will create a new administrative unit in Quebec’s immigration department, called Francisation Québec. His responsibilities will include coordinating and offering French language learning services to people who cannot work in the common language of Quebec. But the module is not scheduled to launch until June next year, according to the website of the OQLF, the language application agency in Quebec.
“In fact, Bill 96 already imposes a mandate to study French without offering additional support,” technology leaders said in a letter to the prime minister. “By the time your government creates Francisation Québec, the law will have discouraged workers around the world from choosing Quebec as a new place to build a life and raise a family. This has a direct impact on the competitiveness and attractiveness of Quebec’s most critical sectors and the most promising companies. “
Many corporate leaders in the province have voiced support for strengthening the French language, although they warn that the new legislation could burden companies with additional costs and complicate their recruitment efforts at a time when Canada is facing severe labor shortages. Among the most important changes is that immigrants settling in Quebec will not be able to deal with the government in a language other than French after being in the province for more than six months.
Technology leaders say this has thrown recruitment efforts into chaos, especially as companies do not have access to appropriate language training, even if they are willing to pay for it themselves, as demand for these services has outpaced supply. Without this support, Quebec companies will start looking to open offices in other parts of the country and relocate staff, Mr Bergen said. He said some may be reluctant to leave Quebec directly.
The developer of cancer drugs at Montreal Repare Therapeutics Inc. RPTX-Q illustrates the situation. The company announced earlier this month that it had struck a major deal with pharmaceutical giant F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG to develop and commercialize camonsertib at the startup in Montreal. The agreement is extremely important for the company.
Repare CEO Lloyd Segal said he would like to attract more international experts to Quebec to work on the deal. But the clarity he has been able to offer these people in years past about their work and life situations – in other words, how they will function in French – has now become blurred, he said. So Repare may have no choice but to hire more people for his Boston office instead of his Montreal headquarters, he said.
Quebec has been the best place in the world to develop a technology company because of its diversity and highly educated and technologically savvy population, Mr Segal said.
“The risk here is the quiet relocation of some of the most valuable growth businesses Quebec can ever create,” he added. “No one will advertise that they have chosen to add 20 people to Toronto, Boston or Vancouver. You will not read about it in the newspaper. The notes will not expire. It will just happen. “
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