Thank you for your question.
It's a Treasury Board Secretariat policy on recognizing certain unilingual francophone and unilingual anglophone regions. It doesn't mean that the community that speaks the other language does not exist in these regions, but rather that most of the people there speak the language recognized by the Treasury Board Secretariat. In these regions, we actually followed this practice for three months, early on in the pandemic. We allowed unilingual labelling in English or French for small businesses in these communities distributing products locally. However, in designated bilingual regions, bilingual labelling was always required.
It's important to note that there were very few products, compared to the 5,000 or so hand sanitizers we've authorized since the beginning of the pandemic. The sanitizers made by breweries and distilleries, which are what is at issue here, represent a low percentage of the hand sanitizers marketed during the pandemic.