With respect to iggy_oi's remark that "It’s usually just used as a talking point by people who don’t like Quebec," the operative "it" in question is the baseless idea that bilingual packaging requirements are a "subsidy to Quebec" and something that materially increases the costs of doing business in Canada in general. In reality, as I pointed out earlier, we have other national standards that have to be met, so packaging for consumer products is (usually) unique for the Canadian market anyway. And, in point of fact, many if not most manufacturers would end up spending more money on unilingual packaging because they'd need separate sets of Canadian English and French packaging anyway.
All I said was "the idea of ditching bilingual packaging 'to save costs' usually is just used as a talking point by people who don’t like Quebec." (And I'm right!) It seems you've concocted an idea that by extension iggy_oi (/me) was implying you baselessly "don't like Quebec" and are "racist" as such, because your business decided to pull out of the Quebec market for whatever reason. I don't know why you did this, because neither iggy_oi nor I ever implied the sort. You were not in any sort of "cross-fire" with respect to this discussion until you inserted yourself into the discussion to say "businesses aren't prejudiced; it's about costs." Yeah, no ####, but the idea that bilingual packaging totally ruins the profitability of a consumer product is complete and utter nonsense as explained before and above. You dove off into this otherwise tangentially-related point about how "onerous" it is to do business in Quebec in general.
That said, with respect to your assertion that people—you in particular—"explained" to iggy_oi (/me) why they/you pulled their businesses out of Quebec: you did so in the most superficial and inadequate way possible.
Re-read what you wrote: "I didn't simply decide not to operate in Quebec, I WAS operating in Quebec, and walked away from it, because it simply wasn't worth it, as it has gotten increasingly onerous in the last few years." YOU DID "simply decide to not operate in Quebec," precisely because "it simply wasn't worth it"!
If you don't want to "paste all of the regulatory requirements that your business would face to deal with Quebec": fine. But don't be surprised that someone like me comes along, reads your comment, and says you need to provide something more substantial than "it's too onerous" to qualify as an "explanation". I have no ####ing clue what it is you even do for a living. Do you sell widgets? Do you offer professional services? (Like Locke?) Locke at least I can kind of extrapolate why he'd not bother doing taxes for people in Quebec, because there is the added complication of dealing with Revenu Quebec separately from CRA and frankly if Locke doesn't speak French it's kind of pointless and stupid for him to even attempt to woo a predominantly French-speaking clientele with tax docs in French. And if he would require a membership in the provincial professional accountants' association—which undoubtedly requires knowledge of French as a prerequisite to membership—then I can see that being a practically insurmountable hurdle. I get it: I'm an engineer and I don't have membership with L'ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, even though I do speak French (poorly, at this point). There's no point in me hanging my shingle in Quebec; I wouldn't win any business out there anyway.
But, conversely, the Quebecois engineers I know don't do business out here either, for essentially the very same reason: they'd have to prove proficiency in English to be registered with APEGA in the first place. It's as much an "onerous" hurdle for them as proving French proficiency is for me, and it would be arrogant presumption for me to pretend Alberta's "hurdles" are more justifiable. And they also face a client base that has far too many kooks who froth at the mouth at the very idea of Quebecois people being here, or Quebec-based companies trying to do business here in the first place.
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