{"id":525722,"date":"2026-03-10T01:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T01:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/525722\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T01:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T01:17:18","slug":"where-do-we-draw-the-line-montreal-real-estate-agent-surprised-over-oqlf-letter-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/525722\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Where do we draw the line?\u2019 Montreal real estate agent surprised over OQLF letter – Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After selling homes in Montreal for close to three decades, real estate agent Mario Conte says he\u2019s used to dealing with paperwork \u2014 but not the kind he recently received.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Office qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois de la langue fran\u00e7aise (OQLF) sent him a complaint letter about the language he uses on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really surprised, astonished,\u201d Conte said. \u201cThey mentioned to me that on my social media platforms, there wasn\u2019t enough of the French language.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trilingual agent says all of his printed material, from business cards to calendars, is in French and his website is in both languages.<\/p>\n

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He never imagined that what he posts on his Instagram account would catch the attention of the province\u2019s French language watchdog.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about Instagram, which has a worldwide reach,\u201d he said. \u201cThe user has the option on a click of a button, that the post in front of them is expressed in the language of their choice. I mean, where do we really draw the line?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Conte isn\u2019t the only one who has been the target of OQLF complaints about social media posts.<\/p>\n

Less than two weeks ago, Global News spoke to the owners of an Armenian bakery in Montreal, who also received a letter of reprimand over the use of too much English on their TikTok posts.<\/p>\n

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Francois Laberge, a spokesperson for the agency, says businesses operating in Quebec must respect the charter of the French language \u2014 including when they post and advertise on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe content can be posted in a language other than French, but the French version must be at least equivalent and as accessible,\u201d Laberge said.<\/p>\n

But constitutional lawyer Julius Grey says trying to regulate language on social media raises questions about freedom of expression and adds that it gives Quebec a bad rap.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s terrible for Quebec and it\u2019s terrible for the people because they\u2019re insisting on things that have absolutely no purpose \u2014 not based on any sort of fact and cannot possibly harm anyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size After selling homes in Montreal for close to three decades,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338,10843],"class_list":{"0":"post-525722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-montreal","11":"tag-oqlf"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}