Ontario was among the first jurisdictions in Canada to expressly design its legislation according to the simplified model (Plain Language Drafting Policy) and, French being an official legislative language in the province, French legal translators there apply the principles of Plain Language when they are followed in their source text. Their work being the translation of Common Law into French, they are not impaired by conflicts of law as they have no Civil Law tradition to take into consideration, both for lexical and syntactical purposes. However, to write plainly, they must still be aware of the influence of both legal systems and linguistic traditions. In that respect, Canada as a whole, including the input from two other Common Law bilingual provinces, namely New Brunswick and Manitoba, has now gained international recognition as a producer of Common Law in French; its hybrid style relies on a legal and non-legal French lexicon, to a large extent inspired by traditional French Civil Law from Canada and Europe, and on an original specialized lexicon, specific to the Common Law context.

In Quebec, where French is the official language and English a target language, the acceptance of the Plain Language model, in spite of its acknowledged value, has been slower at the implementation level. However, the Quebec government had very early demonstrated its concern for clarity and user-friendliness when the Ministère du Revenu (Ministry of Revenue) entrusted the simplification of Quebec tax forms to an American firm, Siegel and Gale, in the 80's. Sine then, administrative writers, first, then, social workers, literacy and community stakeholders, and, more recently, legal writers have become more and more convinced by the innovative graphic and stylistic solutions put forward by the Plain Language movement as an efficient way to reach one's audience. The advent of information technology and the need to include less able readers played a major role. Plain Language is now well received due to its grass-roots appeal and is referred to in some academic programs, mostly in the field of communications.

The movement for Plain Language seem to have taken more time to catch the writers' and lawyers' attention in Quebec for two reasons: