A daily reality we have to deal with is the fact that while Pixellogo is a Canadian logo template company, we are however unable to do business with our clients who are residents of the province of Quebec.
We get emails on a regular basis asking us how come Pixellogo is located in Montreal, but during the checkout process the province of Quebec is not listed in our Checkout form, and we always reply to our client with the simple truth which is: We are forbidden to do business with residents of Quebec.
Why?
It's because the Office Québécois de la Langue Française approached us about a year ago and informed us that since we are a logo template company based in the province of Quebec, then we must have a French version of our site on display as well in order to comply with French language laws designed to safeguard the endurance and rights of the French speaking citizenry of Quebec.
Our options were clear; Either stop selling to the residents of Quebec, or set up a French language duplicate site of Pixellogo.com. Otherwise the issue would be escalated and we would probably be subject to certain penalties.
Our first impulse was to translate and publish a French version of our site. However after detailed studies we found out that there are certain problems we would have to tackle which included:
That's why we had to finally resolve and decide that we would not be able to offer our services to our clients in Quebec. Sadly, we tried explaining to the Office québécois de la langue française that even though our site was in English, we still offered help to our clients in French when asked or required, but that alone was not sufficient and for the sake of satisfying the French Language laws of Quebec, we had to stop all sales to our clients in Quebec.
Therefore when anybody visits the Pixellogo logo template store, they will notice our declaration on our homepage saying:
Which translated means: Sorry! Pixellogo.com is a website which does not offer services or products within the borders of Quebec.
So we want to apologize to our clients in Quebec and we hope they will see that the matter is out of our hands.
So is there absolutely no way for our Quebec clients to buy from us? Well there is a way around it; Simply have a friend or acquaintance residing outside the province of Quebec place the order for you and that would do the trick.
Sadly, we are not the only company having to deal with this issue. Recently Urban Outfitters, faced with the same issue, decided to entirely block their website to all visitors from the province of Quebec.
We respect the French language laws of Quebec, however the Office Québécois de la Langue Française must understand and take into consideration that the technical reality of the world wide web merits a different approach and application of the Quebec language laws and unfortunately, hurling obstacles towards Quebec based e-commerce companies does nothing but harm the Quebec economy bottom line.
So again, we apologize to our clients and fans in Quebec and assure them that it is not by our choice that we are unable to do business with them.