Chris Selley: May the ‘nosh’ resistance against Quebec’s language cops spark a revolution

Arthurs Nosh Bar owner Raegan Steinberg outside her restaurant in Montreal. Quebec’s language watchdog is targeting the business because of its name. Photo by John Mahoney/Montreal Gazette/Postmedia

Article content

Canadians aren’t big on civil disobedience, at least not if it comes with consequences. They’ll march, occupy, beset, harass and intimidate, but they’ll generally insist they have a constitutional right to do all that in the name of protest. The most famous civil rights icons knew they would get arrested, and knew it could be much worse than that. But most modern protesters don’t want to risk missing a day of work or board-game night, or having to pay a fine, on behalf of their principles.

Article content

Article content

Some Montreal restaurateurs are bucking that trend in a small but beautifully simple way, showing defiance against the latest goonish attack on people just trying to run an honest, successful business from the language police at the Office québécois de la langue française’s (OQLF). We need more of this, and faster.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Article content

Some anonymous sociopath actually complained about that to the OQLF, because “nosh” isn’t French, and the OQLF actually saw fit to follow up and demand redress. (Mind you, that is their job. Hate the players by all means, but you have to hate the game as well.)

Article content

Article content

In response, David MacMillan, one of the Quebec’s best-known chefs, simply wrote “NOSH” on the front door of his restaurant on Montreal’s West Island. A few others have done the same. It’s hardly Rosa Parks in Montgomery, but it’s definitely something.

Article content

“Our city is a mosaic of cultures, stories, languages and traditions. That’s what fills our markets, inspires our menus and makes this one of the greatest food cities in the world,” reads an Instagram post by soup-and-salads outfit Mandy’s, which also added “nosh” to its front window. “The words may come from different places, but they belong to all of us now.”

Article content

Article content

Disobedience of the OQLF nannies seems to be growing from the targets themselves, too, not just from those who support them.

Article content

Article content

The OQLF recently sent a warning letter to a Syrian-Armenian-Lebanese bakery, Lahmajoune, which is run by francophones — not that that should matter — for excessive English-language social media posts. “Honestly, it makes me feel sad,” proprietor Charbel Hannan told the Montreal Gazette. “We’re a family-run business rooted in this province. We work hard, we pay our taxes, we serve our community with respect, with love, with craft. Everything is handmade. So to receive a letter like that, it doesn’t feel like support.”

Article content

The OQLF also recently turned its sights on SoLIT Café, in downtown Montreal, for having a name that, if you put a space in it, becomes an English expression. The proprietor told CBC the OQLF also insisted she translate “chicken nachos,” and then complained again when it became “nachos au poulet,” because “nachos” is also English. (The OQLF disputes the “nachos” part of the story. I know who I believe.)

Article content

Famously, running a restaurant doesn’t come with a lot of free time. Yet these propreitors are essentially daring sociopaths to complain and the OQLF to investigate and sanction them. And there’s certainly no reason to think it wouldn’t. It’s a sort of bravery Quebec needs far more of. One of the saddest moments of the Bill 21 process was when the English Montreal School Board said it simply wouldn’t respect it — i.e., it would not discriminate against teachers who wear religious symbols — and then folded like a cheap tent.