The creation of a Board of the French language was one of the recommendations of the Tremblay Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems which published its five-volume report in 1956.

[2] Such an institution was part of the list of 46 vows formulated by the Second Congress on the French Language in Canada held in Quebec City in 1937.

In 1974, the Official Language Act was adopted, which strengthened the status and use of French in Quebec and gave the OLF a decisive role in the implementation of its provisions.

[4] Sections 159 to 164 of the Charter of the French Language define the mission and powers of the OQLF:[5] In 2004, the organization had a yearly budget of $17.8 million.

Since 1998, the OQLF has been rewarding outstanding francization efforts by persons and organizations in the form of awards in the areas of "work", "business"[10] and "information technologies".

[13] Residents of Quebec alleging a violation of their linguistic rights "to be informed and served in French"[14] can file a complaint, for which the OQLF which is responsible for processing.

Legally, the organization has no police powers, instead relying on the threat of fines or the withholding of a company's "francisation certificate"[20] as enforcement techniques.

Forty to fifty percent of these complaints have to do with commercial products for which there is no available French manual or packaging, 25% have to do with signage in stores, 10% with websites and 5% with the language of service.

[22] Schwartz's, along with Dunn's and other well-known delicatessen establishments, also fought a ruling to change the name of "smoked meat" to "boeuf mariné" in order to conform to the law.

[35] After receiving negative coverage throughout the world including the US[36] and Europe,[37][38] the OQLF eventually backed down, admitting to being "overzealous" and stating they will perform a review of the way these types of complaints are handled.

In 1993, the United Nations Human Rights Committee concluded in Ballantyne, Davidson, McIntyre v. Canada that it was outside of the Quebec government's jurisdiction to limit freedom of expression in a language of the person's choice.