People wait for a table on the newly opened terraces, situated in Place Jacques Cartier in Montreal, on April 13, 2023.Christinne Muschi/The Globe and Mail
Quebec has introduced legislation to curb excessive tipping, a growing concern among consumers faced with high prices and increased demands to top up their bills.
Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who is responsible for consumer protection, tabled a bill Thursday that would force businesses to calculate suggested tips based on the price before tax and regulate how grocery stores display the price of food.
“Many families in Quebec are under pressure due to inflation, and we know that in this context, every dollar counts,” Mr. Jolin-Barrette told reporters during a news conference in Quebec City. “With the reforms we’re proposing today, we want to better protect pocketbooks and the spending power of Quebeckers.”
The minister said there’s “growing pressure around tips,” and people often end up paying more than they intend. As an example of the bill’s impact, a $100 restaurant bill would have suggested tips calculated as a percentage of that price, not the after-tax total of $114.98.
The changes follow “tipping fatigue” in the context of broader cost-of-living concerns. After customers began increasing tips during the pandemic as a gesture to thank service workers at a difficult time, some businesses that hadn’t customarily received tips began asking for them. An Angus Reid survey last year found that more than four in five Canadians felt too many locations were asking for tips.
Association Restauration Québec, an industry group, said in a statement that it “does not necessarily see any disadvantage in this” as it could result in a reduction of certain transaction fees.
“While this decision will naturally have an effect on the income of the staff in the dining room, it is too early to comment on possible consequences,” the statement says.
David Pagé, a manager of Bar Darling on Montreal’s Saint-Laurent Boulevard, said in an interview that the current convention is for restaurants to apply tips after provincial taxes, “but I wouldn’t be against doing 15 per cent before taxes.”
He acknowledged that servers would probably earn less, but said “tipping got a bit abused by restaurateurs.”
Suzanne Miscevic, a customer interviewed just after leaving her table at the Darling’s patio, also agreed with the new tipping rules.
“It should be on the amount before tax, not after tax,” she said, adding that she usually gives 15 per cent, which has traditionally been considered the standard amount.
Daniel Bender, a University of Toronto professor in food studies, said he would have preferred to see the government address the working conditions of service workers with measures such as higher minimum wage or better health benefits. Instead, he said in an interview, the change on tipping will only hurt workers by effectively lowering their pay.
“Some of the many other problems that are endemic in a tipping-based economy – from who does those jobs, how are those jobs racialized, what kind of protections are there for those wages, and taxation amounts – instead of moving us past that, this seems to be reinforcing exactly that,” he said in an interview.
Alejandro Velazquez, owner of Twisted, a restaurant and bar on Mount Royal Ave., where tips are also applied after taxes, was not sure yet how he felt about the proposed new policy.
“I need to see what the impact will be on clients,” Mr. Velazquez said in an interview. “Also for the servers, because it’s part of their pay.”
At the news conference, Mr. Jolin-Barrette was also asked why the government didn’t go further – for example, by banning tip requests in places such as cafés where there is no table service – but he said tipping remains up to consumers.
“The government isn’t here to say you must tip in this place and you must not tip in this other place,” he said.
Sylvain Charlebois, director of Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, said that the move will ultimately provide more transparency to consumers.
“Given the failure of industry to get ahead of this issue, government is stepping in,” he said in an interview.
The bill also contained measures to make prices clear for consumers and to protect people when items are incorrectly priced. Currently, consumers are entitled to get items worth less than $10 for free when they’re priced incorrectly, and $10 off the price when they’re worth more. The new bill would increase that rebate to $15.
The legislation would also require grocery stores to clearly indicate whether taxes will be applied to food items. Also, regular prices would have to be clearly marked alongside sale prices and prices for loyalty program members.
Stores offering a discounted price for several items would also have to clearly indicate the unit price. And similar products from different brands would have to use the same unit of measurement to make it easier to compare prices.
Mr. Jolin-Barrette said Quebec families spend an average of $330 a week on groceries, and the new rules should help “simplify life” for them.
The bill also includes measures to protect Quebeckers from fraud and predatory lending, and would ban door-to-door sales of heating and air-conditioning devices, and of decontamination and insulation services. He said “unfair and misleading” practices in these fields account for more than 400 complaints a year to the province’s consumer protection office.
With a report from The Canadian Press