I don't mind the surcharge if the place is good.
Her's the dilemma. Serving staff hears customers speaking French as they come in. Staff thinks, "Great. No tip for me today," and proceeds to deliver poor service. French customer thinks, "This is really poor service. I'm not going to leave a tip." (in French, of course).
Staff sees no tip and goes, "Just what I thought. A lousy tipper."
Catch-22.

I think the French are less "polite" (or more open) than other Canadians, and will definitely let their dissatisfaction show in their tipping, when another person may be more forgiving. However, I know examples of French people leaving pennies even when the service was good, or insulting the wait staff in French when they think the staff can't understand them.

I kind of like the idea of the gratuity being added on to the bill. In the Philippines, I didn't really have to worry about tipping, but sometimes left some of the change from the bill anyway.

Sandy Kong gives a couple of examples of the tips left for her servers. Yet she doesn't say how good their service was. If you get bad service, by all means give a bad tip. If the service is truly terrible, don't tip at all. I always wonder why the server should get 15% when all they did was take the order and bring the food. I'm not saying that's nothing, but shouldn't the chef get far more credit than the server?

Adding a charge based upon a national (or in this case, provincial) origin is rude. Just like not tipping when you know it's the local custom is rude.

davelog got it right. Mandatory tip = surcharge. When did tipping become an expected part of their wages anyway? Maybe it's time the restraunt owners start to pay a decent wage instead of me paying them for the meal and then paying the person who brings it to me seperately. Oh and I don't need to work as a waiter. I already work in a "service to customers" type job and nobody ever thinks of tipping me.

If the policy isn't spelled out up front, the customer can refuse to pay it. But if the target is from a foreign country, they probably won't know that.

Tipping is, by definition, optional. When it's mandatory, it's called a surcharge.

As a French Canadian who almost always overtip (about 30%), this autotip charge thing is very good news... for me ! Woohoo !! :D

Yeah well first of all, not all French speaking Canadians are from Quebec, and I'm sure not all Quebecers are bad tippers.... and I disagree with any place adding an automatic gratuity no matter what the situation. Maybe if her wait staff works so hard she should pay them more to begin with.