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Quebec is looking for a way to ban the “Bonjour-Hi” greeting at businesses and in government offices.

That’s what Simon Jolin-Barrette, the minister responsible for the French language, said Friday at the National Assembly.

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The minister, who calls himself a pragmatist who wants Quebec laws to be easily “applicable,” said he wanted to follow through with motions that were unanimously adopted at the National Assembly.

The most recent of these motions, presented by the Parti Québécois, invited “all merchants and all employees who are in contact with local and international customers to welcome them warmly with the word ‘Bonjour.'”

Jolin-Barrette didn’t specify what concrete steps he would take to outright ban “Bonjour-Hi.”

He quoted data from the Office québécois de la langue française, according to which French-language greetings in Montreal dropped from 84 per cent to 75 per cent between 2010 and 2017.