A bilingual website in Quebec: Bill 96, requirements and SEO

Two forces pull your website in opposite directions. The first is legal: in Quebec, the Charter of the French Language, strengthened by Bill 96, treats your site as a commercial publication and requires it to be available in French. The second is commercial: in greater Montreal, a real share of your customers and partners search, read, and buy in English. Ignore either one and it costs you, in two different ways.

Most SMBs solve the tension backwards. They build a polished English site, then bolt on a thinner French version, half-translated, quietly forgotten by the next redesign. That is the exact opposite of what the law asks, and it is also poor SEO math.

This article explains what the law actually requires, what an OQLF complaint sets in motion, and how to structure a genuinely bilingual site that satisfies the Charter and serves your visibility in both languages instead of diluting it. Our own site is the worked example.

The short answer, for the busy

In Quebec, a business website is a commercial publication under section 52 of the Charter of the French Language. It must therefore be available in French, and if a version in another language exists, the French version must remain of a quality and accessibility at least equal to it (section 10 of the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business). An English version that is more complete or better maintained than the French one is a violation. Since June 1, 2025, Bill 96 has strengthened the regime, and fines for a business run from $3,000 to $30,000 per violation, doubled on repeat offences. In practice, the right architecture makes French the canonical version and English a full, equivalent sibling, linked by reciprocal hreflang tags. That structure satisfies the OQLF and serves your search visibility in both languages instead of diluting it.

What the law actually asks

Section 52 of the Charter is short and broad: catalogues, brochures, leaflets, commercial directories "and any other publication of a similar nature" must be in French. The OQLF reads that category as covering websites and social media, and that reading has been confirmed by the courts and by the regulatory changes tied to Bill 96. In plain terms: your site does not escape the rule because it is digital.

This does not mean "French only". Section 10 of the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business allows a commercial publication to exist in two distinct versions, on one condition: the French version must be available "under conditions of accessibility and quality at least equal to" the version in the other language. That sentence decides everything. You may have an English site. You may not have one that is better, more complete, or easier to find than the French one.

Bill 96 did not invent this obligation; it hardened it. Since June 1, 2025, the penalty regime and enforcement expectations have tightened, and an SMB's exposure to complaints has grown with them. The principle for your website is unchanged, but the price of ignoring it went up.

The thin-translation trap

Here is where most bilingual sites fail, often without anyone noticing. The English version is written first, carefully. The French version comes later, translated fast, a few pages short, with a blog that never gets translated and forms left in English. Technically, a French version exists. In practice, it is inferior.

That imbalance is a direct legal risk under section 10. But it is also an SEO mistake, and this is the part owners underestimate. Google indexes each version separately. An empty, duplicated, or machine-translated French page does not rank: it captures none of the French-language searches that make up a huge share of queries in Quebec. You pay for a bilingual site without collecting the francophone half of the benefit. If SEO still feels fuzzy, our SEO explained without the jargon piece lays the groundwork.

The conclusion is uncomfortable on a tight budget, but clear: a half-built French version is neither compliant nor useful. Fewer pages, complete and equal in both languages, beat a large English site with a French facade tacked on.

What an OQLF complaint actually sets in motion

Enforcement runs largely on public complaints, and the OQLF received a record number of them in 2024-2025. Anyone can report a non-compliant site. Here is what follows, without the drama.

The Office opens an investigation. If it finds a breach, it contacts the business and may, after a notice, issue an order to comply within a set time. That order can be challenged before the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec within 30 days. Only if the business ignores the order can the file be referred to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions, who decides whether to prosecute. It is then the court that imposes the fine, $3,000 to $30,000, doubled on a repeat offence.

Let's be honest about the real risk: penal prosecutions over a website are rare. One documented case: Quality Belt maintenance ltée pleaded guilty in May 2022 and paid a $1,500 fine (under the old scale) because the French version of its site was not accessible "under conditions at least equal to" the English one. For an SMB, the real cost is almost never the fine. It is the management time a complaint eats, the reputation hit of being named publicly, and increasingly, the scrutiny of business clients who check their vendors' compliance. The good reason to do this properly is not fear of the regulator; it is that the compliant site is also the better site.

Doing both properly: French as the canonical version

The architecture we recommend, and apply to our own site, inverts the usual reflex. French is the canonical version: the reference structure, the one that exists first and in full. English is a full sibling, not a by-product: every French page has its English equivalent, of equal quality, updated at the same time.

Concretely, this shows up in the URLs. Our articles live under /conseils/ in French and /en/insights/ in English, with distinct addresses per language. The slugs themselves are translated (not /en/conseils/, but a real English address), because a keyword in the URL helps in the language it is searched in. Titles, meta descriptions, and image alt text are written, not transposed word for word: a good English page targets the phrases English speakers actually type, which are rarely the literal translation of the French ones.

This choice has a pleasant side effect. By treating French as the foundation, you are compliant by construction: there is never an English version "ahead of" the French, because French is the starting point. Compliance stops being a chore bolted on at the end and becomes the way the site is built.

Hreflang, without the jargon

One technical detail decides whether your two versions help or hurt each other in Google's eyes: hreflang tags. The word is intimidating; the idea is simple. A hreflang tag is a label, in the page's code, that tells Google: "here is the same page in another language, at this address." It serves the right visitor the right version and stops Google from thinking your two pages compete.

Three rules, straight from Google's own documentation, are enough to get it right. First, the links must be reciprocal: if the French page points to the English one, the English must point back, or Google ignores both. Second, each page must list itself in addition to its variants. Third, language codes follow a simple standard (fr for French, en for English, with an optional region like fr-CA). Google also recommends an x-default value for visitors whose language matches no version. Done right, hreflang makes your bilingual effort count twice instead of canceling out.

Where to start

The sequence is short. First, an honest audit of what you have: is your French version really as complete and current as the English, page by page? The answer is often no, and that is the first risk to fix. Second, decide the architecture: canonical French, English as an equal sibling, distinct and translated URLs. Third, the technical plumbing: reciprocal hreflang, per-language metadata, and a plan to keep both versions in sync over time, because compliance is lost the first time an update is made on only one side.

That is exactly the kind of check we run together at the start of a mandate: where the site slips on compliance, where it leaves SEO on the table, and how to fix it without rebuilding everything. If you are still weighing doing it yourself against hiring help, our pieces on building your site yourself or hiring an agency and the platform comparison set the scene.

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This article explains language obligations to help an SMB ask the right questions; it is not legal advice. The text of the Charter of the French Language, the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business, and their application by the OQLF prevail: validate your situation with legal counsel before any decision.