Family-run Montreal bakery targeted by language watchdog over English TikTok posts

A family-run Montreal bakery has been targeted by Quebec's language watchdog over its English TikTok posts.

For the last seven years, Charbel Hannan and his family have operated Lahmajoune Villeray, a family-run bakery serving up Armenian and Middle Eastern food.

To share his family’s story and reach more clients, the bakery decided to use social media and post videos on TikTok.

“It’s a way to let people see more the behind scenes of our family. The story about our family and of course to get more marketing,” Charbel Hannan, whose family runs Lahmajoune Villeray, said.

Two days ago, Lahmajoune Villeray received a letter from the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), after the French-language watchdog said it received a complaint about the bakery’s social media posts, specifically on TikTok.

At first, the family thought the letter might be fake, but they quickly realized it was legitimate, leaving them stunned.

“Frustrated too a little bit and afraid of what is this all about because we’re not really experts in the law,” Hannan said.

In a statement to CTV News, the OQLF said: “Under the Charter of the French Language, all commercial publications distributed by a company about products or services intended for the Quebec market must be in French, including those distributed on social media.”

That doesn’t mean a business cannot post in English. The OQLF goes on to specify: “a business can also have two versions of the same social media account, for example an English version and a French version of the same Facebook account. In this case, the company must ensure that any published content aimed at the Quebec market in the English version of its account is simultaneously published in French in the French version of the latter.”

Hannan says some of the bakery’s posts are in English and some are in French.

“Most of the time it’s French, English,” Hannan said. “Sometimes, it’s just English, sometimes it’s just French. We really didn’t focus on this matter; we never wanted to value one language more than the other.”

Before taking the situation public, he says his family called the OQLF.

“We tried to contact them, we tried to call them over six times, it didn’t work,” Hannan said. “An agent was passing us to another agent, it was never ending up with a right person.”

He admits the bakery will now have to be more careful when using social media to grow their small business.