Bilingualism: c’est payant! funded by Canadian Heritage supports businesses that wish to offer bilingual services and supports businesses in the use of both official languages since 2004. This program was set up to meet the needs of businesses that wish to increase the provision of services in French and English within the greater National Capital region.

The program offers services such as low-cost translation, oral communication workshops in French adapted to the customer service sector as well as recruitment support for bilingual staff.

According to a recent survey, a majority of business owners want to serve their customers in English and French. They recognize the benefits of offering quality bilingual customer service.

• Reduced cost for translation services for restaurants and other companies
• One hour of graphic design
• Introduction to French culture
• French workshops
• Lexicon with popular words and sentences
• We will promote your company on the Bilingualism website

According to Ottawa Tourism, the National Capital Region welcomes nearly 3 million French-speaking visitors to Quebec per year. Considering French-speaking international visitors, 120,000 people add to this statistic.We all know the importance of entrepreneurs and small businesses to our economy. Those customer-facing businesses, many of which are in our retail, hospitality, convention and leisure tourism economy, are a key component to improving bilingualism in our community.

Employers are looking for additional qualifications that will allow candidates to stand out.