The mayor of Dieppe is hoping the city can encourage local businesses to erect bilingual signs instead of acting on a petition that would force companies to make the switch.

Dieppe is one of the province's fastest-growing cities, driven largely by francophones moving from northern New Brunswick and its economy is supported by a robust retail sector. One Dieppe resident has grown frustrated by some of the unilingual local signage and is now circulating a controversial petition to have a bylaw established that would mandate signs to be bilingual.

Driving down the streets of Dieppe, there are some signs that are only in French and most are bilingual. However, at the city's main mall the signs are usually in English.

Dieppe Mayor Jean LeBlanc said the city will look at the petition, but he would prefer to convince businesses to switch to bilingual signs rather than force them to do so with a bylaw.

"I think it's a much more durable result if you do it by promoting or by consensus to get on board," LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc said city officials visit businesses on a regular basis and offer translation services and even money to any company that wishes to put up a bilingual sign.

"I think the city has taken the soft approach. We've taken the approach to promote, to advertise, to make people aware and even to subsidize businesses to try to make sure they provide service in both official languages and that they have their signs in French in the city," the mayor said.

So far, Martin LeBlanc-Rioux's petition has garnered 1,500 signatures, and he's hoping to collect 5,000 names by the time he presents it in the new year.

The idea of enforcing a new law is hardly unanimous. Monique Zeilinger told councillors that a bylaw would be the equivalent of setting up a language police.

Coun. Dave Maltais said Dieppe is a bilingual community and he would like to see that reflected in more signs around town.

"But here in Dieppe it's important that the French be included in every promotion — things like that," he said.

Bylaw 'must meet businesses' and customers' needs'

Andreea Bourgeois, director of provincial affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said business owners know their customers the best, so should be responsible for choosing their signing, not politicians.

"It's in their best interest to adjust to their customers' needs, including linguistic needs. If the issue is lack of customer service in a particular language, simply regulating the display language of a sign does little to improve customer service," Bourgeois said. "Therefore, such a bylaw must come from the business community and meet businesses' and customers' needs."

The concept of setting a sign policy is within the city's rights if it wanted to take that course, according to Michel Doucet, a law professor at the University of Moncton.

And the executive director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities said bilingual signs are important, especially in centres with minority language populations.

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