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QUEBEC — Bonjour-Hi is alive and well in Montreal.

Despite a 2018 National Assembly motion urging the city’s shop keepers to drop the “Hi” and warmly greet their clients with just a “Bonjour,” new statistics released Friday reveal that Bonjour-Hi is still in widespread use — even thriving.

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In fact, Montrealers, especially younger residents, don’t really see what the fuss was about. The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) reports that 46 per cent of them express “indifference” over which language they are greeted in.

That may be because, in the case of francophones, the majority (96 per cent) say they are served in French after getting past the initial pleasantries.

The new data is contained in the April 2019 update on the status of French in Quebec released by the office Friday.

“Does it still exist today? I can’t say for sure because we don’t have statistics for today in 2019, but clearly we need to do more sensitization,” office president Ginette Galarneau told reporters.