A disappointing entrance

When visiting the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto with his family, a Francophone noticed that the touchscreen ticket vending machines at the entrance were only available in English. He subsequently contacted us to make a complaint.

The Royal Ontario Museum is an agency of the Government of Ontario. The museum told us that the ticket machines had been installed just a few weeks before the man’s visit, and at that time they were operating in English only. However, they said bilingual staff were still available at the ticket counter to serve Francophones in person. They said the initial plan was to have the machines available in both English and French from the outset, but translating, testing and implementing the French version had taken longer than planned. The museum decided to move forward with unilingual English machines in anticipation of the busy holiday season.

RESULT: Two months after the complainant’s visit, a French language option had been implemented on the machines. The museum confirmed to us that in the future, all visitor-facing technology would be tested in English and French for simultaneous rollout in both languages. They acknowledged that “it should have been done in this case.”


Learn more about the French Language Services Unit which answers questions and takes complaints about services in French.
Read about how we helped other people in our Selected cases.