Dieppe will introduce a new measure to boost the number of bilingual signs in the southeastern New Brunswick city on Monday night.
The francophone city has been under pressure since last November to address the complaint that too many signs in the community are in English only.
In January, a Dieppe resident filed a 4,000-name petition with the city demanding a bylaw that would force businesses to post bilingual signs.
Dieppe Mayor Jean LeBlanc said the city's latest move will be presented at Monday night's council meeting.
Although the debate over bilingual signs is now centred in the southeastern New Brunswick city, an association of francophone communities is concerned about the lack of bilingual signs elsewhere in the province.
Lise Ouellette, the executive director of the association that represents francophone communities, said the group is launching a program to reduce the number of English-only signs in New Brunswick.
Ouellette said the number of English-only signs in an officially bilingual province is unfortunate.
"We are a very small minority in North America and we have to be very proactive," she said.
Ouellette points to Dieppe, which already has a campaign to help businesses switch over from English-only signs to bilingual signs, as a good example of a way to get more bilingual signs in front of stores.
Dieppe mayor pleased
LeBlanc said he's pleased to hear that other communities may follow Dieppe's lead.
"We've been doing this for almost 10 years, and I think it's a positive step that now all of the francophone municipalities are looking at maybe doing something similar and having governments help them with that," LeBlanc said.
Still, LeBlanc is under pressure from residents to pass a bylaw to force businesses to use bilingual signs.
But Ouellette said tough bylaws are not the preferred option for now.
"We believe bylaws are not the most efficient approach; in an issue like this one it's important to have a buy-in," Ouellette said.
Even if it takes more time to educate businesses, Ouellette said, it's better than bringing in bylaws that cause hard feelings.
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