French only highway signs – A petition, started by Cote Saint-Luc City Councillor Ruth Kovac and Montreal Lawyer Harold Staviss, which garnered close to 7,000 signatures calling for an end to unilingual French signs on Quebec highways, has prompted the Quebec Liberal government to finally do something about it. Today they announced that pictograms will be replacing them by the end of this year. It was the only option the government had that would not violate Quebec’s language laws – which does not allow for English on the signs.
The pictograms will also be used on the electronic message boards now in place that were not capable of showing pictograms, but with a new technology bought by the government, they will now be able to do so.
This will come as somewhat of a victory for proponents of bilingual signs and make it easier for tourists and other drivers from outside the province to navigate our roads.
Do you think it will work? Is it enough? Let us know!
