MONTREAL – Publishing a newspaper has gotten a lot harder for Lily Ryan over the last three years.
The Pontiac Journal is a small bi-weekly — and bilingual — newspaper based out of Pontiac, a municipality in western Quebec, about 239 km from Montreal.
It caught the attention of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) in 2012 for apparently muddling its English and French advertising space.
The paper was contacted after the language office received a complaint.
“If there’s an ad that’s in English, it must be published in an English-only section, with English only articles,” explained Lily Ryan, the paper’s publisher.
Similarly, if an ad is bilingual, it has to be on a page with bilingual content.
“It’s a production nightmare,” said Ryan, who admitted the Journal has never followed a standard guideline when it came to advertising because there has never been a problem.
“We know that readers don’t have a problem with the newspaper in any way.”
Ever since the OQLF started running random inspections of their paper, Ryan said the small editorial team has been trying its best to comply with the law. Nevertheless, she said the situation has shocked her.
“I don’t believe that we live in a country that would be okay with one complaint initiating such a massive, drastic reaction in a small business,” she said.
The OQLF told Global News it’s been working with the Journal closely over the past three years to make sure everything is going well — and that’s the only reason why negotiations are still ongoing.
“We understand that people sometimes are asking a lot of questions,” said Jean-Pierre Le Blanc, a spokesperson for the organization.
“We’re trying to explain why the law is there.”
Le Blanc said the language office doesn’t want to impede on freedom of the press or tell Ryan how to do her job, the issue is simply just about following Quebec’s language laws.
“In that particular case, it’s only about the ads, the commercial publicity,” he said.
Of course, the paper could always separate its editions into French and English to solve the issue, but Ryan said this wasn’t an option.
“The community is a bilingual community.”
“People are accustomed to communicating in both languages and they expect that from their newspaper,” she said.
Ryan also pointed out the government has bigger issues to be worried about.
“If we’re in a province that’s dealing with austerity measures, how can anyone talk to the people and say ‘Yes, we’re going to cut your healthcare services, yet we’re going to continue funding the language police,'” she asked.
The Pontiac Journal said it is continuing to work with the OQLF, while trying to stay true to the people who read it.
rachel.lau@globalnews.ca
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