New Brunswick’s official languages commissioner says the province’s Crown liquor corporation is failing to meet its obligations under the province’s Official Languages Act.
Commissioner Shirley MacLean says she received a complaint in March 2025 from a man who said staff at a New Brunswick Liquor Corp. store in Saint-Antoine de Kent, N.B., could not offer him service in French.
In New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province, the public has the right to receive services in the official language of their choice from all government departments, Crown corporations and other public bodies.
In a report submitted last month to NB Liquor, MacLean says the law also applies to third parties that provide services on behalf of public institutions — and that includes agency liquor stores.
NB Liquor argued that its agency stores are not third-party service providers, citing a December 2015 decision from a previous languages commissioner who described them as sales intermediaries not subject to the Official Languages Act.
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As well, NB Liquor argued that it did not exercise authority over the hiring, training or language proficiency of agency store employees.
But MacKay’s report rejects those arguments by citing case law and accusing the corporation of relying on “artificial distinctions, inapplicable definitions and a restrictive reading” of the languages act.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
