PRICE OF AN APOSTROPHE

The Ottawa Citizen
June 30, 2005
The price of an apostrophe in Quebec $786:
Language police fine store owner for punctuation in sign, threaten to seize his vehicles if not paid
Dave Rogers

When a man on a motorcycle approached Bob Rice earlier this month as he was mending his fence, he suspected, based on past experience, that he was going to be required to pay a fine for some provincial offence. But he didn't know why. What Mr. Rice, a 64-year-old plumber and farm supplies dealer from Venosta, 80 kilometres north of Gatinea, wouldn't be able to find out until a week later was that the Office quebecois de la langue francaise had received a complaint about the apostrophe on his store sign - the second in five years. What happened next was something out of the absurdist fiction of Franz Kafka.

The bailiff told Mr. Rice that he had to pay a $599 fine and a $187 delivery charge within a week or have his Ford F-350 pickup truck, farm tractor and Chevrolet Cavalier sold at an auction in his yard on July 6. Rather than risk losing his vehicles, Mr. Rice paid the combined $786 fine and bailiff's charge on June 14. It then took more than a week of telephone calls to Quebec government offices to discover that someone had complained about his apostrophe.

Mr. Rice's ticket said he had been charged under Law 101, the Charter of the French Language. He thought he had solved the problem five years ago when he covered the words "Plumbing and Farm Supplies" on his sign with a Canadian flag. The sign's right there on the metal shed, about 70 metres from the road. It's hard to see even though it's been there 25 years. For the past five years the sign has read simply "Bob's." Now, not even the apostrophe is left. Mr. Rice climbed his ladder and stuck a five-centimetre Canadian flag over the offending punctuation mark, even though no one assured him that will end his legal problems.

Mr. Rice's troubles with the language police began in 2000 when a French-only letter informed him that there was a judgment against him for violating Law 101, which requires French words to be dominant on commercial signs. Turns out that on May 14, 1999, he was convicted at a trial he didn't attend. By early 2000, the $250 fine had grown to $518. If he didn't want to pay, the bailiff told him, the government would take one of the vehicles and auction it off. He was given a couple of days to think it over.

This year, the Office de la langue francaise used similar tactics. A conviction had been registered against Mr. Rice on Dec. 6, 2004, even though he wasn't present. "I didn't know who was watching me or what he wanted," Mr. Rice said yesterday. "I got out of my tractor and he said he wanted to speak to me at the house and told me he was a bailiff. "The bailiff said he just brought the fine, but didn't know what it was for. All he said was it had something to do with the government. He had the serial numbers of my truck, tractor and car, so I paid."

No one at the office was available to tell Mr. Rice what kind of trouble he was in because the employees were involved in a labour dispute and were working half days. At the end of the one-week grace period, the bailiff refused to give him more time to pay.

Now Mr. Rice feels that $786 is too much to pay for an apostrophe that can scarcely be seen from the road. "They said it went to court in December, but I never knew about it," he said. "It seems that after the first offence I don't need to be notified about the charges and can be tried and convicted in absentia. "This is ridiculous, even racist. Who would think they would pick on something like an apostrophe? No one would believe that an apostrophe would hurt the French language or that people will speak French less because of my sign." Mr. Rice said he should not be penalized for a sign in his own language. In any case, he won't take it down or retire from his business selling gates, hardware and farm wagons.

Maureen Rice, his daughter, said her father removed two signs listed on the ticket five years ago. She said nobody could have read signs advertising Gallagher Power Fence Systems and Super Bowl watering equipment in 2002 when the offence is alleged to have occurred.

Meanwhile, Gerald Paquette, a spokesman for the Office de la langue francaise, denied the agency had issued the ticket. Mr. Paquette said the language office has had no dealings with Mr. Rice since 2000. He suggested asking the Quebec Ministry of Justice whether the ticket was for some other offence. A spokesman for the Quebec court office in Montreal said the Dec. 6, 2004, judgment against Mr. Rice was for a provincial income tax violation, but offered no other explanation. Maureen Rice said the family does not know of any income tax problems with the Quebec government. Ms. Rice said the offence listed on the ticket mentions only Quebec's language charter, Law 101.