A Dieppe resident is circulating a petition requesting a bylaw to force businesses to put up bilingual signs.

Martin LeBlanc-Rioux said his petition will be presented at the first council meeting in the new year. He said businesses haven't responded fast enough to the New Brunswick city's plan to encourage them to erect bilingual signs and he feels there are too many English-only signs.

He said it's time to pass a bylaw to force the change.

LeBlanc-Rioux has spent a month collecting 1,500 names on a petition but admits the response is not unanimous.

"I think the main concern for [those opposing a bylaw] is how this could spark some tensions," LeBlanc-Rioux said.

However, LeBlanc-Rioux said more signs in French and English would better reflect the interest in the community in promoting itself as a bilingual community.

"I think this initiative and a bylaw that will require the bilingualism of commercial signage would solidify the linguistic peace in our region rather than incite tension," he said.

He wants to collect 5,000 names on his petition, which would represent a quarter of the population of Dieppe.

"We now live in a province where French and English are united for bilingualism and anglophone residents understand that French being a minority language in the region needs the support of laws in order to be as present as the English language," he said.

LeBlanc-Rioux said the city has told him it doesn't have the power to pass such a bylaw because it's a provincial decision.

Michel Doucet, a Université de Moncton law professor who specializes in language law, said there is nothing in the Municipalities Act or the Official Languages Act that would preclude Dieppe from acting on the petition.

"They couldn't impose one language, they couldn't say that only English or only French but because they have the power to promote both official languages on their territory, they could do that," Doucet said. "The obstacle is not legal, the obstacle would be political."

The law professor said it can be expensive for businesses that have already put up unilingual signs to take them down and replace them, but he said the city should be more proactive on new companies as well as national firms.

Doucet said LeBlanc-Rioux's request is not an equivalent to Quebec's Bill 101 that forced French to be the predominant language on signs, it is simply calling for bilingual signs.

"The municipality should be more aggressive in making sure the businesses in Dieppe respect both linguistic communities and reflect that language equality," he said.

Rodrigue Landry, executive director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, said bilingual signs are important, especially in centres with vibrant minority language populations. Landry has studied minority language groups across the globe and he said the visual landscape is a signal of vitality for that cultural community.

"Dieppe is 80 per cent French but the landscape does not reflect the collective identity of the population," Landry said.

"What [not having bilingual signs] tells you is your culture, your language is second class. It is not important enough."

Landry said all linguistic minorities need some sort of government to regulate language and in this case it's Dieppe, the province's only francophone city. The minority language expert said if the city adopts such a bylaw, it should clearly articulate the reasons for it to avoid any potential backlash.

As for the francophone business owners who are erecting the English-only signs, Landry said it comes down to the old way of thinking about commerce.

"They are victim of the same thing that the public landscape says. They have been convinced over the years, if you want to make money you have to speak English," he said. "It is a conditioning process. They may not be even conscious of it. A businessman does not think about language first, he thinks about making money."