Festimonial Giveaway and other Festools Promotion Giveaways - Exclusion of Quebec

F

Frenchnew

Member
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
7
[mad] All your giveaways exclude Quebec residents because Festools USA is too cheap and too lazy to register with the Quebec Government to permit such giveaway.

The cost to register is 0.5%  [eek] of the value of prizes offered (C15 Drill Set & SysLite values at $760 X 0.005 = $3.80) according to the following link;

http://www.racj.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/templavoila/documents/formulaires/anglais/RACJ-8002_Ang__03_10_.pdf

For $3.80 you would have made Quebec customers  [big grin] instead of annoying us.

Delays in registration is about 20days

Hoping that you guys will eventually do the right thing and include Quebec residents in your promotional giveaways.

 
There are numerous regulations that are the reason for us choosing not to include Quebec. For instance, the rules have to be written in French as well as English as I understand it.

The intention is not to annoy anyone. Maybe the frustration should be directed toward the local government since Quebec is the only location that I'm aware of with these strict regulations. Sorry that Quebec residents are not included.
 
Frenchnew said:
...Festools USA is too cheap and too lazy to register with the Quebec Government to permit such giveaway.
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This seems me to be an overly harsh statement. I am not defending Festool USA but these accusations seem unfounded.
I can however admit that I have been both cheap and lazy.
While I understand the disappointment of not having access to the giveaways, cheap and lazy are not something that comes to mind when I think of the Festool brand or it's employees.
Tim
 
I don't remember ever seeing a contest that was based outside of Canada and did NOT exclude Quebec.
 
fdengel said:
I don't remember ever seeing a contest that was based outside of Canada and did NOT exclude Quebec.
Click to expand...

Exactly...pretty much every contest I have ever seen has some sort of disclaimer that excludes the residents of Quebec.  Pretty unfair to bash Festool there Frenchnew.
 
I know it's no fun being left out of contests where you can win nice prices. I participate on this forum for a couple of years now and I have seen many contests/sweepstakes that are for North America only, so I as a Dutchman am left out. But hey, that's how it works with different countries, different governments, different rules.

That said, it seems Quebec makes it quite difficult for people, companies or organisations to run contests/giveaways. Now I don't know much about Quebec, but I do know Belgium as that is my neighbouring country, and Belgium is, just like Canada divided into two areas with a different language, with one of them French. That is not unique, there are more countries with more than one official language, but I did notice that somehow in countries like Belgium and Canada, with a French speaking part, some sort of "language war" is going on. It is not for nothing there's a large part of Quebec that would like to become independent. And the same thing is going on in Belgium, where they recently were out of a government for about 1,5 years because the two sides couldn't agree with each other.

Sorry, but you can't have a war without having some casualties, and in Quebec's case the publicity contests seems to be amongst them. And in Quebec's case, it's their own rules that make it so difficult.        

With this link as source, you can read the following:

Québec Rules

Contest organizers must meet additional requirements when operating a contest open to
Québec residents. The Act respecting lotteries, publicity contests and amusement machines
(Québec Lotteries Act) defines "publicity contest" very widely, and includes "any operation
that results in the awarding of a prize." Therefore, contest organizers must be aware of and
comply with the requirements in Québec Lotteries Act as well as the Charter of the French
Language.

The Québec Lotteries Act imposes duties on virtually all publicity contests permitting
participation by Québec residents, and also gives authority to the Régie des alcools, des
courses et des jeux to create rules governing publicity contests in Québec.

The contest organizer must pay duties to the Régie, calculated on the value of the prizes and
the contest’s geographic participation base. The duties are equal to 10 per cent of the prize
value for contests offered to Québec contestants exclusively, 3 per cent for Canadian
contests open to Québec contestants and 0.5 per cent for all other contests open to Québec
contestants.

.....

.....

Finally, the Charter of the French Language legislates that all contest materials, including
the contest rules and advertising, must be made available in French. A version of the rules
or advertising in another language may also be published, provided that it is accompanied
by a French version which is at least as prominent as the version in any other language.
Click to expand...

So Quebec imposes quite some rules that not only make it more difficult, but also more expensive to run a publicity contest in Quebec. For instance, every time somebody would want to run a contest, they would be required to hire a translator to translate the announcement and rules into French, and that would add significantly to the costs of running a contest. Unreasonable costs, if you ask me, because with a price of several hundred dollars, the translation alone might costs even more than the prize itself      
 
Another Canadian here, The OP is way off base - Of course there is a lot more to it than the money - I have many friends in Quebec but the language laws there are ridiculous - Forcing companies to change their products' names and signage because they were too "English". My company which is a Canadian company that had done business in Quebec for years, simply gave up and left - Lazy and Cheap? No. Smart and Pro Active - The market in Quebec is seldom large enough to warrant supportng many business endeavours that would otherwise enter that market if the language police would let them. Of course this is a sensitive issue for many Canadians. To over simplify it and accuse Festool of being lazy and cheap is ridiculous.
 
Frenchnew said:
[mad] All your giveaways

Festools USA is too cheap
Click to expand...

Seems a bit harsh. Doesn't the first comment kind of negate the second? 

I say this as someone else who can't benefit from Festool USA giveaways, but I just figure I haven't lost anything personally and someone else gets a great free tool...good for them.

Just my  [2cents]
Rick

 
If my local government (The State of California) made it difficult for me to participate in any activity, I would take my complaint to my local government officials.
 
fdengel said:
I don't remember ever seeing a contest that was based outside of Canada and did NOT exclude Quebec.
Click to expand...

I've seen it too, on more than one occasion. I was born in Montreal, Quebec and currently live in Toronto, so I have practical experience with both.

Quebec operates in it's on idealistic vacuum. That's about all I can say without fostering an all out war of words. I'm sure that Shane really doesn't want this thread to continue anyway, so I'll let it go at that.
 
I will not bothered any of you anymore as I will definitely sign off this forum.

FYI there are other international companies that do abide by Quebec's rule.

I work for an American Company with an English name and I got them registed with the registry of Companies in Quebec without having to change the name to aFrench version jsut by indicating that our Company Name is a trademark.

Goodbye to all and do not expect further business from me nore from my friends.
 
I live in Quebec, and the reality is that a minority want to make it impossible for English people to live normal lives. The attitude of the former FOG member is quite easily found here. They blame the English for all their problems, and then wonder why all the companies left Montreal in the 70s and 80s.

But there are a lot of positives here too, so if you can get by with all the BS, it's a good place to live.

 
Its not even funny how French speakers seem to get in this frenzied language war anywhere they settle in - France is a fiasco in itself (especially Paris, where I was told (in French and lots of hand waving) to leave a Brasserie because I ordered a cup of tea in English), Belgium as Alex mentioned above and what I've heard from my Belgian friends (governmental requirements for employment of excellent French linguistic skills even for the Flemish people, the French speaking part of the population considering themselves superior to the Flemish people, etc.) and Quebec in Canada with the weird language laws mentioned above.

We are an officially bilingual country too with Finnish and Swedish compulsory in school for everyone even thou there are only about 7% of the population that are native Swedish speakers, but we don't have any of the other silly stuff going on that the French-speakers seem to advocate the world round. Sure, you have to have some kind of knowledge of both languages to work for the state and it's seen as a plus in any service job, but everyone here speaks at least passable English so even if your Swedish is bad you can easily enough communicate in English and more often than not the Swedish-speaking Finns speak good Finnish anyway. For the record I speak Finnish as my mother tongue and am happily married to a Swedish-speaking Finn with all three languages (Fin/Swe/Eng) spoken and happily mixed at home. My kids are entirely tri-lingual.

Heck, there are only about 5 million Finnish speakers in the world - I wonder why we don't have crazy language protection law everywhere and all? Quite the opposite - we encourage our kids to learn at least three languages (Fin/Swe/Eng) in lower school and most do a fourth language in upper-school & college (Spanish/German/French/Italian) and many even a fifth one (Chinese/Japanese/Russian/Greek/Portugese) in university.

I just don't get the crazy protectionism on the French language...  [blink]
 
Richard Leon said:
I live in Quebec, and the reality is that a minority want to make it impossible for English people to live normal lives. The attitude of the former FOG member is quite easily found here. They blame the English for all their problems, and then wonder why all the companies left Montreal in the 70s and 80s.

But there are a lot of positives here too, so if you can get by with all the BS, it's a good place to live.
Click to expand...

Yup. We lived in Montreal and moved up to Toronto in 1966. Asked my father once why we came up here and he had two words for me. "René Lévesque".

He was an aeronautical engineer in Montreal and gave it up to teach math, history and world politics in Toronto. Even though I was only twelve at the time, I distinctly remember how much happier he was after we moved.
 
Odd....took him since April to decide to finally leave.

But it makes no sense.  Why bother with what represents maybe 2% of the North American marketplace all the aggravation to comply with the completely out of the ordinary regulations of one geographic region?  It's quite normal for companies running contests to exclude Quebec, and often at times the entire country of Canada which I suspect when that is the case, it is because of the Quebec regulations issue.  Seriously, he blames Festool?  This has nothing to do with Festool or any other company, just the myopic minded Quebec Government wit another one of their moments of brilliance all in the name of protecting their citizens from the ravages of the evil outsiders.  What a load of bunk imo!

And it seems it's not just a matter of filling out the form, submitting a fee and you are on your way.  There's crap you gotta comply with also "after" contest is over.  Per their regulation booklet previously linked to by the OP, which I seriously don't think he has read and digested otherwise he would see how arduous and unreasonable such requirements in fact are, are requirement items 15 and 16.....

15. A person for whom a publicity contest is carried on shall, within 60
days following the date on which a prizewinner is named, file a
written report with the board that specifies:

1. whether all the prizes offered have been delivered;
2. the name and address of each winner of a prize valued at $100
or more;
2.1 the prize won by the participant and the date on which the
prize was delivered;
3. the name and address of any winner who has not claimed his
prize, the prize won by him, the reason his prize has not been
delivered to him and the measures taken in an attempt to deliver
the prize to him, whatever the value of the prize.
4. the prizes that have not been awarded or delivered, their description and the reason why each prize has not been awarded or
delivered.

16. A person, for whom a publicity contest is carried on shall keep, for
120 days following the date on which a winner is named, all entry
forms, documents and other vouchers enabling the board to verify
whether the contest has been properly carried on.
The board may, however, change that period:

1. where the vouchers have already been verified;
2. where the file includes documents proving that the contest has
been properly carried on;
3. where the file contains documents demonstrating the necessity
of conducting an inquiry and it was not possible to conduct the
inquiry within the timeframe set out in the first paragraph.

What nonsense.  Unless everybody else operates in this manner when it comes to contests, why would you do this to your citizens.  Are they really doing this to protect them?  That fee tells a different story for one, which to me is a tax grab more than anything else.  But surreptitiously, is it not also possibly getting their citizens to look to blame the outside of Quebec world for not including them which is what has happened to this OP and I'm sure many others without fully grasping the mountain of difficulty it is for outsiders to comply with their stupid contest rules and love their government even more and hate everybody else outside of it who doesn't bother to include them in their contests?  Hmmmmm!!!!  Propaganda can take many forms and sadly that's what I see here.

And all this to GIVE something away.  How asinine is that?
 
Not beating up on Quebec, just adding a story about when restrictions or hassles just become too much of an obstacle.

Long, long time ago I worked for a major grocery store chain.  The store I worked at was frequented by younger partying types.  We sold more beer and chips than any other store in the area.  One of the huge chip manufacturers decided to to try to make a chip as an alternative to Ruffles - the chips with ridges.  Their product would have the waves in the chips to not be parallel to each other so some parts of the chips would be thicker and some would be thinner.  They chose my area to be a test area and our store was focused on.  Of course there were incentives.  My coworker who was a friend and also the one that inadvertently got me into construction, was in charge of the purchasing and created a combination display of beer and chips because the Super Bowl was just a couple of weeks away.

Sales went well and the display - 12 feet tall and probably 10’ x 10’ was restocked.  Then a snowstorm hit.  In my area panic sets in when snow is forecast.  People rush to the stores like they will not be able to get there for a week.  Milk, bread, and other perishables are wiped out.  (Shane if he is reading this will attest.)  Plenty of beer and chips though.

The problem was after the storm and thus the crux to this true tale.  When shopping patterns are disrupted in the grocery industry, when you are dealing with perishables all heck breaks loose.  Your computer orders bread in a massive quantities but all your customers bought bread and won’t need it for a bit.  Your milk - same way.  Your mountain of chips that have been sitting there for a while; ditto.

So the question of what to do to recreate normalcy comes to the forefront.  Do you reduce the cost of the bread and chips and milk to get it off of the shelf?  But if people buy that won’t it prolong the weird ordering and buying cycle?

The answer:  Get rid of it and donate it to a charity.  I was asked if I knew of a chairty and I remembered that my Mom’s church was helping out a local charity / food kitchen.  Called Mom, she came, we filled up her car and my truck and went to deliver hundreds of bags of chips, hundreds of loaves of bread and lots of milk.

We arrived and people came to us looking for bread.  We went inside and asked about delivering and help unloading and we told that we couldn’t park there and that the closest place was about two blocks away.  No, they didn’t have anyone to help us.  And they didn’t have anything on wheels to lend us to unload.

So we parked two blocks away and my Mom and I delivered the goods.  Mom was in her sixties then with medical issues.  Needless to say it took hours.  And we didn’t even get a thank you when we were done.

I got back to work and got yelled at for the time it took (I was on the clock.)  The store never donated another thing.  They threw it in the trash instead.

It is a shame that sometimes regulations and situations can ruin a good thing and that there are the times that the hassle is just not worth it.

Peter
 
Kevin D. said:
Odd....took him since April to decide to finally leave.
Click to expand...

In more than two years on the FOG, he posted all of 7 messages. That's a good indication of how active he was here. Give and you'll often get. ~ Something that Quebec should consider doing if they want the rest of Canada to take an active interest in their activities.
 
There's something strange going on when a person goes to the effort of saying they're not going to talk to anyone on a forum - probably still lurking to read the resulting posts ...

NAH NAH - you can't comment frenchnew or you'll blow it  [big grin]

Regards,

EnglishKev
 
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