Thinking of expanding your franchise globally? Canada may seem like a natural place to start, because of its geographic proximity to the U.S., its friendly residents and openness to international investments.  

Franchise-Friendly Canada 

Canada is a franchise-friendly nation. In fact, Canada has 76,000 franchise locations, second only to the U.S., which has 821,000. There are many pluses to building a business in Canada: an educated, skilled workforce that mostly speaks English, good infrastructure and plenty of undeveloped land.  

The Canadian Franchise Association (CFA) says prospective franchise owners from Canada are most interested in the following franchise verticals: quick-service restaurants (16%), full-service restaurants (13%), B2B services (13%), retail (12%) consumer products and services (11%) health/fitness/senior care (11%), children’s products and services (8%) and automotive products and services (8%). 

Unlike most countries with franchise laws, however, Canadian franchise laws are not the same throughout the nation. In fact, only five of Canada’s 10 provinces have franchise-specific laws.  

One key difference is that Canadian disclosure requirements are more extensive, and courts have held that U.S. franchise disclosure documents are not adequate for franchisors looking to do business in Canada. So you – or rather, a Canadian lawyer – should create a separate disclosure document if you decide to expand north of the border.   

You also may want to look into a master franchise or area developer model – where you empower someone to represent the franchisor to grow the system there – especially if you are considering expansion into French-speaking Quebec. 

Quebec Is Another World  

Franchisors will need a representative who’s fluent in French if they intend to do business in Quebec. That’s because although many residents of Quebec speak English, especially in large cities like Montreal, French is the official language of Quebec.  

Business is mostly conducted in French, and the law allows customers and employees to insist on it. Not only must signs be translated into French, but if English is also on signage, the French language must have the “greater visual impact.” 

Marketing in the Land of Maple 

Canada is vast. It’s the second-largest country by total area in the world, but with a comparatively small population of about 41.5 million. (The U.S. population is 340 million.) 

The lower population density could positively impact your marketing budget. There are a number of large cities – Toronto (2.6 million), Montreal (1.6 million) and Calgary (1.4 million) top the list – but you can reach a greater percentage of the population in Canada at a lower cost than in the U.S., where much larger cities like New York (8.3 million), Los Angeles (3.8 million), Chicago (2.6 million), Houston (2.3 million) and others compete for ad dollars in national campaigns.  

Although the CFA reports that most prospective franchisees may be found in Ontario (50%) and British Columbia (38%), Curious Jane has gotten excellent results from fran dev campaigns in Ontario and Quebec. 

If you are thinking of expanding into Canada at any point, you may want to act now to protect your intellectual property.  

• Register your preferred domain name with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority.  

• Apply for any relevant trademarks or patents in Canada, as U.S. trademarks and patents are not recognized in Canada. (Copyright protection does extend to works created in the U.S.) 

Thoroughly researching requirements, hiring representatives familiar with the Canadian business and legal landscape and taking steps to protect your brand assets will help you be more successful if you decide to expand north of the border.