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FREDERICTON — 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.
“(NB Liquor) indicated that the retail sale of liquor in an agency store is a transaction involving a commercial product, not the provision of an institutional or government service,” MacKay’s report says.
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. She stressed that the act must be interpreted broadly and liberally.
As well, MacKay said NB Liquor does, in fact, exercise a great deal of control over agency stores. ”The agreements (with agency stores) provide a comprehensive framework for various aspects of day-to-day business, including hours of operation, point-of-sale layout, display and space allocation,” her report says.
MacKay’s report offers six recommendations to NB Liquor. Among other things, the corporation should instruct all agency stores to provide services in the official language chosen by customers. And they should also use compliant bilingual signs.
The report also calls on NB Liquor to revise its agency agreements to stress the obligation of employees being able to communicate with the public in either official language.
MacKay’s report marks the third time the commissioner’s office has investigated complaints regarding agency stores. An earlier report in June 2015 concluded the stores were third parties. At the time, the corporation said it would change its requests for proposals to specify that successful bidders for agency stores had to comply with requirements of the languages act.
But that change was dropped after the subsequent report in December 2015 came to a different conclusion.
NB Liquor operates 39 corporate stores and has 92 agency stores. The agency stores are typically in smaller, more remote communities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 18, 2026.
— By Michael MacDonald in Halifax
The Canadian Press
