Quebec's fledgling Conservative Party has launched a petition in favor of the 'Bonjour-Hi' greeting.
Last week, the National Assembly voted unanimously to support a PQ-backed motion urging shopkeepers to refrain from using the 'Hi' portion of the greeting, insisting the word 'Bonjour' on its own "expresses magnificently Quebec's ability to live together."
Now, Conservative leader Adrien Pouliot says he wants to highlight the fact that not every Quebecer, or every Quebec politician, feels the same way on the matter.
"Bilingualism is one of the trademarks of Montreal and southern regions' identity," the text of the petition reads. "It's also well known that a successful transaction begins with an open welcoming to customers."
The petition was posted over the weekend, and has so far received a couple of hundred signatures.
The symbolic National Assembly vote last week put Quebec's language politics in the worldwide spotlight, even if some news organizations, like the BBC, has initially reported that the English part of the greeting had been made illegal.
The current iteration of the Quebec Conservative Party was founded in 2009, and in recent months has been polling at anywhere from 1 to 4 per cent province-wide. It has never elected a member to the National Assembly.