Monday, May 10, 2010

Since When Are Table Manners Classified a Human Right?

This is a story  that I hadn't heard about until yesterday when Roy Green on his show had touched on it. When I heard about it, it just stuck in my craw. It's senseless and it's just one more reason why the HRCs should be scrapped.

Tasha Kheiriddin has so eloquently put it:
Now table manners are a human right?
From Quebec comes yet another case for why human rights tribunals should be abolished.
A family has just been awarded $17,000 in damages because a lunch monitor tried to instruct their then-seven-year-old son to eat with a knife and fork, instead of with a fork and spoon (the traditional Filipino way of eating).  The monitor allegedly told the boy’s mother that her son “ate like a pig” and the school’s principal told her that her son should “eat like a Canadian”.  The boy was also allegedly punished for clowning around during lunch.
So what did the boy’s family do?  File a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission, natch!  Four years later, despite the Commission initially rejecting the claim for lack of evidence, the Human Rights Tribunal continued to investigate the case and has now issued its ruling, fining the school.
The Vancouver Sun writes:

3 comments:

  1. There's a story going around on the net that it wasn't using the spoon and fork that caused problems, but that the child was an extremely messy eater and food was everywhere. Would like to know if that's correct. Lots of kids that age tend to use finger and fork rather than knife and fork, even with parental prodding.

    At any rate, that Mum has set up her child to be completely ostracized by classmates. Nothing like a lawsuit-happy Mum to make Junior an undesireable friend.

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  2. My son went to that school and I was a volunteer in the library there, so I know the principal and the lunch monitor involved. They are both dedicated professionals who worked in this school and others for many years (École Lalonde is French, but multicultural).

    The monitor didn't say he was a pig but that he ate like a pig (manges comme un cochon). He did too. He had had to be separated from the other kids eating before because of the big mess around him.

    The whole thing turned into a human rights circus once the mother complained to her ethnic association. We received tons of threatening e-mails and the board had to hire a security guard.

    I ask you, if you want your kid to not be disliked by the other kids, would you really go to the lengths this lady has gone. The monitor didn't use very diplomatic language, but to say she is racist is ridiculous.

    Teachers and principals are now afraid to discipline kids because the children can run to human rights commissions and the kid know it. Meanwhile two people have black marks on their careers and will probably have to pay some of the money as I doubt the board or union will back them up any longer.

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  3. Thank you for sharing that Anony.

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