Lawyer and activist Harold Staviss says it took two years to get Subway to consider bilingual menus for their Quebec restaurants.
The restaurant told him the signs would look too cluttered with both languages on them.
But a photo taken in New Brunswick helped prove his point.
“Somebody was nice enough to send me a bilingual poster, a bilingual menu board from a restaurant in Edmundston, N.B. and it was English and French. I sent it to Subway and I said ‘why in Edmundston, N.B. it is not cluttered, and in Quebec it seems to be cluttered?’”
He says within two weeks he got a call from the president of Subway Quebec and was told that by January every franchisee in Quebecwill be able to change their current, unilingual menus to a version that includes English as well.
In a statement, Guy Lafromboise, president of Subway Quebec, said: "our goal is to make the order process simpler... Possibly we were not sensitive enough to the English community we are working on layout and process and look forward to early new year."
The decision is seen as a victory by Staviss and Cote St. Luc city councillor Ruth Kovac.
“It sends a message that whether you're francophone, Anglophone or Allophone, we respect you and we want your business we don't want you to go somewhere else,” she said.
But Staviss says there's more work to be done, especially atgas stations, where he says there are often no English advertisements or any English on signs.
He says in the case of Subway, persistence paid off and has given him hope that he can bring about even more change in the future.
