Board game retailers in the Canadian province of Quebec are at risk of closure, according to a report by Canadian outlet CTV news. A Quebecoise language law requires the majority of packaging on commercial products sold in Quebec to be written in the French language – something that game store owners say effectively outlaws the products they sell.
Article 51 of the French language charter (Charte de la langue française) requires that the most prominent text on commercial packaging, and accompanying manuals – yes, including board game rulebooks – be provided in French.
The biggest and best board games all provide multilingual instructions, and many have French packaging variants. But hobby stores rely on a diverse range of products including miniature wargames, Magic the Gathering sets, paint for miniatures, and so on – products which often have little or no French-language packaging, and for which French language alternatives aren’t available.
In CTV’s report – which you can watch in full below – several board game store owners suggest that large parts of their ranges are effectively in violation of this law.
The game store owners in CTV’s report want tabletop games, and the products surrounding them, to be recognised as cultural products similar to books, which are exempt from the French language charter.
This isn’t a new law – the French language charter has been in effect since 1977 – so why are stores raising the alarm now? An update to the charter known as Bill 96 has been working its way through the provincial government since 2022, and it has been in the news after new provisions of the Bill came into effect on June 1 2025.
The initial 2022 draft slightly tightened the wording of Article 51 – not only must French be the most prominent language on packaging, it must also be at least as accessible as any other language.
I’m no legal scholar, and I can’t find an accessible legal analysis of this amendment, but I have two theories. Either this is referring to ‘accessible writing’ for people with sensory impairments, like large font for visually impaired people or braille for blind people; or it’s a deliberate repetition with slightly variant wording intended to make the law easier to enforce.
The June 2025 updates now require the majority of signage and adverts in stores to feature predominantly French text – a potential issue for some of the advertising materials for tabletop games supplied by publishers and distributors. And whereas a trademark could previously contain non-French words, now, any generic or descriptive words in the trademark (like ‘healthy butter’ or ‘tasty bacon’) must be translated into French.
The issue for Quebecoise game store owners doesn’t seem to be new laws, but instead a rising focus on those laws that may result in more and stricter enforcement. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made Bill 96 into an election issue in March when he stated the government would intervene should the law be challenged at Canada’s supreme court.
And in the USA’s 2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, it called Bill 96 a ‘technical barrier’ to trade, making it a talking point in Canada’s trade war with the USA.
Are you based in Quebec and think the risk to the board game industry is real, or overstated? What has the impact of the French language law been on your hobby, good or bad? We’d love to hear from you in the official Wargamer Discord community – it’s growing more and more international.
If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this very dry article, you either love serious stuff – in which case check out our guide to the best strategy board games – or you now need a break – in which case, check out our guide to the best party board games!
Source: Wargamer
