A Filipino-Canadian spoon and fork controversy, which sparked international protests, is making headlines again. The
Montreal-based Centre for Research-Action On Race Relations (CRARR) has
asked the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission to review,
and even rescind, its ruling on a complaint of racial discrimination
filed by a woman whose son was exposed to discriminatory remarks and
treatments for eating with a spoon and a fork in a school in Montreal.
Last
month, Quebec’s Human Rights Commission ruled that Luc Cagadoc, was
reprimanded for his table manners, not his choice of utensils. “It’s not a matter of discrimination.
It’s a matter of education in the classroom,” commission president
Gaétan Cousineau told CTV Montreal.
The commission also said there is no evidence that the principal said the boy should eat like a Canadian. But
it noted that the lunchtime supervisor acted in a discriminatory manner
by asking the boy if people in “his country” washed their hands before
eating. The commission determined that the comment was an isolated
incident ...
