Canada to firmly re-assess its status as a British colony

[crazy canuck]

It does seem odd to me that Corel would have a French Website but not have it set up in Canada.  True it could be pure incompetence or as you say complete disregard.  But this is a corporation which is walking distance to the Quebec border.  I can understand why someone might think that disregard borders on malice.

Maybe although it looks like they have websites in a lot of different languages - even Czech and Russian.  Is the claim then that Corel really dislikes Quebec so they are willing to make accommodations for France, the Czech Republic and Russia before they would stoop to accommodate French-speaking Canada?

I dont know what the explanation is.  It does seem very odd.  Why do you think they would not provide service in French in Canada but provide service in French in other countries?

[crazy canuck]

Like I said to Valmy, why do the voters want it then.

For the same reason voters vote for anything - they percieve it to be in their self interest or in the interest of the country for those few voters that might look beyond their own self interest.

[Valmy]

Like I said to Valmy, why do the voters want it then.

That is a better question for our Quebeckers but I assume it is because politicians are bravely claiming they are defending Quebec's heritage and culture from evil liberal...er...I mean Anglo subversion.

[HVC]

Could be malice, or could just be they figure quebecers would just go to the .fr site. Corporations on a whole rarely work on malice. Unless all the IT guys and Baard of directors really hate quebec and veto'd the implementation or something. Oversite and stupidty is often a more accurate theory.

[Berkut]

So if you are marketing in NA, the ordinary average everyday trilingual materials would be acceptable continent-wide - from the bottom of Mexico to the top of Nunavat ... except in Quebec. Who, for no other reason than to assert the superiority of its francophone majority over the anglo minority, insists that all advertising materials be different.

Really it is like we are having two different conversations.  Oex brings up a corp who refuses to have stuff in French at all and big manuals that are in English only.  Then you bring up how French alone is not sufficient and materials that have to be produced for Quebec only must be made.

He said that in response to someone remarking that doing business in Quebec with their language laws seems no different than doing business anywhere with a different language.

Malthus response states precisely why it is in fact different. Not in response to Oex complaining about Corel (which I don't really get - if it offends you that Corel doesn't have a French language website, isn't there a REALLY obvious solution?), although it did come after that post.

That is one of the challenges of a topic in a forum. Just because Post B comes after Post A does not mean it is necessarily in response to post A.

[Valmy]

Really it is like we are having two different conversations.  Oex brings up a corp who refuses to have stuff in French at all and big manuals that are in English only.  Then you bring up how French alone is not sufficient and materials that have to be produced for Quebec only must be made.

Yes there is a nuance between access to materials in French, which is what the Federal Law does, and creating the predominance of one Language - which the Quebec law does.  I am not sure you are getting that distinction yet.

I get the predominance part I was asking about the ramifications of it.  I was just observing that Oex hits on points where French is excluded entirely to defend them when they issue claimed by Malthus is that French being included is not sufficient.

It does make me wonder why they bother translating everything into French anyway if that product cannot be sold in Quebec but I suppose that is to satisfy Canadian federal requirements.

[Berkut]

Could be malice, or could just be they figure quebecers would just go to the .fr site. Corporations on a whole rarely work on malice. Unless all the IT guys and Baard of directors really hate quebec and veto'd the implementation or something. Oversite and stupidty is often a more accurate theory.

Seems rather bizarre that the Francophones are so convinced of this massive conspiracy. On the other hand, I guess it isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you...?

[Berkut]

It does make me wonder why they bother translating everything into French anyway if that product cannot be sold in Quebec but I suppose that is to satisfy Canadian federal requirements.

There is this entire other country with lots of people who all speak French. It is called "France".

[crazy canuck]

I get the predominance part I was asking about the ramifications of it.  I was just observing that Oex hits on points where French is excluded entirely to defend them when they issue claimed by Malthus is that French being included is not sufficient.

I think you are mixing things up the way Berkut suggested.

[Valmy]

There is this entire other country with lots of people who all speak French. It is called "France".

I am talking about products for the North American market.

[garbon]

It does seem odd to me that Corel would have a French Website but not have it set up in Canada.  True it could be pure incompetence or as you say complete disregard.  But this is a corporation which is walking distance to the Quebec border.  I can understand why someone might think that disregard borders on malice.

Maybe although it looks like they have websites in a lot of different languages - even Czech and Russian.  Is the claim then that Corel really dislikes Quebec so they are willing to make accommodations for France, the Czech Republic and Russia before they would stoop to accommodate French-speaking Canada?

I dont know what the explanation is.  It does seem very odd.  Why do you think they would not provide service in French in Canada but provide service in French in other countries?

Non-priority, maybe? After all, it probably wouldn't take long to overlay the French onto a version of the Canadian site and then make sure it was localized properly for the French Canadian dialect - but you do have to assign someone to do it.

I did notice that the Canada version does allow you to buy the French version of products and in the US your option is a Spanish version. I suppose it would also be nice if there was a Spanish version of the US site - given that there are more Spanish speaking people in the US than I believe there are French speaking people in Canada (relying on wikipedia for this effort )

[crazy canuck]

It does make me wonder why they bother translating everything into French anyway if that product cannot be sold in Quebec but I suppose that is to satisfy Canadian federal requirements.

There is this entire other country with lots of people who all speak French. It is called "France".

Not to mention all the other countries in the world that have French speakers.

[Valmy]

Not to mention all the other countries in the world that have French speakers.

Again...products for the North American market are usually translated into three languages.  I doubt this is to sell them in Haiti.

[Valmy]

I think you are mixing things up the way Berkut suggested.

Um Oex said that specifically to point out how the language laws are not a big deal.  So far that was the only defense of them I have seen in this thread.  I guess my question is if things are usually introduced into Quebec where all three languages are usually listed equally.  Are they responding to the English usually being on top and in larger font which is not unusually the case with products here?  Because if not I guess I have to agree that it is an economically damaging and probably short-sighted harmful policy that does not really do much to advance French.

[Valmy]

I suppose it would also be nice if there was a Spanish version of the US site - given that there are more Spanish speaking people in the US than I believe there are French speaking people in Canada (relying on wikipedia for this effort )

According to Wikipedia there are more Spanish speaking people in the US than there are people in Canada.