Every now and then during a slow news cycle, some media outlet will run a story about a fanatic couponclipper who triumphantly demonstrates how to buy $300 worth of groceries for just a few dollars, all through the simple expedient of clipping coupons. It's the kind of "free money" that anyone can have if they put in the time and effort.
Such heroic deeds are no longer confined to the supermarket: Meet Michel Thibodeau, the Ottawa resident "language rights" equivalent of the compulsive coupon clipper. Instead of haunting supermarkets, he haunts bus companies and airlines, forever on the lookout for an abrogation of his right to hear the station stop, the weather, the time and the altitude in French, whether he is trundling across town or flying over Quebec City, Toronto or Calgary.
On Wednesday, the Federal Court of Canada ordered Air Canada to pay Mr. Thibodeau $12,000, in part because in 2009, when he asked an Englishspeaking flight attendant for a 7Up soda, he got a Sprite instead. That was only one of many other humiliations suffered by Mr. Thibodeau and his wife Lynda in 2009. There were occasions when they were not served in French at airports in Toronto, Ottawa and Atlanta (although they were evidently able to manage in English everywhere else in that town). They also complained about lapses in French-language services aboard Air Canada Jazz flights between Canada and the United States.
The Thibodeaus know their way around languagerights suits. This is not their first win. When he was refused service in French while ordering a 7Up on a 2000 Air Ontario flight from Montreal, he filed suit in Federal Court for $525,000 in damages (imagine how painful the sound of the English language must be to demand half-a-million dollars for suffering). The court ordered the airline to make a formal apology and pay him $5,375.95.
Grievance collectors such as Mr. Thibodeau are the spawn of our rights culture, which supposes that minorities live in a constant state of fear of oppression or discrimination. Our courts are so sensitive to their assumed frailty that they tend to punish even the slightest lapse of vigilance as a way of reassuring them that they are loved.
These guilt payouts are absurd, and will serve only to encourage other "coupon-cutter" copycats to shake down large corporations, which naturally regard the suits as a nuisance they willingly settle for what is to them piddling amounts.
The specific case involving Air Canada has a simple solution: Exempt it from the Official Languages Act. When Air Canada was still a Crown Corporation, compliance with the Act was non-negotiable. But the company has been fully private since 1989. Only subsequent acts of Parliament have obligated it to continue complying with regulations designed for the federal government and its commercial holdings (VIA Rail is another private corporation obligated to continue complying with the language regulations of the government, also its former owner).
Corporations that operate throughout the country -especially those that shuttle people back and forth across it -would be well advised to be capable of delivering that service in both official languages. But it is inappropriate that Ottawa force them to do so, especially since it serves mainly to enrich language vigilantes such as Mr. Thibodeau. There would be the predictable howls of outrage if the Harper government took such a step, but considering the difficulties English-speakers face in securing their language rights inside Quebec, it seems a small sacrifice to ask of Canada's francophones.
When supermarkets run out of discounted items, they offer disgruntled customers a free product. Next time Mr. Thibodeau tries his little trick, the airlines should offer him a discounted ticket or maybe a case of 7Up, and if that isn't good enough and he persists in filing yet another suit, the Federal Court should inform him -in both official languages -that he is wasting its time.
Source: National Post
Such heroic deeds are no longer confined to the supermarket: Meet Michel Thibodeau, the Ottawa resident "language rights" equivalent of the compulsive coupon clipper. Instead of haunting supermarkets, he haunts bus companies and airlines, forever on the lookout for an abrogation of his right to hear the station stop, the weather, the time and the altitude in French, whether he is trundling across town or flying over Quebec City, Toronto or Calgary.
On Wednesday, the Federal Court of Canada ordered Air Canada to pay Mr. Thibodeau $12,000, in part because in 2009, when he asked an Englishspeaking flight attendant for a 7Up soda, he got a Sprite instead. That was only one of many other humiliations suffered by Mr. Thibodeau and his wife Lynda in 2009. There were occasions when they were not served in French at airports in Toronto, Ottawa and Atlanta (although they were evidently able to manage in English everywhere else in that town). They also complained about lapses in French-language services aboard Air Canada Jazz flights between Canada and the United States.
The Thibodeaus know their way around languagerights suits. This is not their first win. When he was refused service in French while ordering a 7Up on a 2000 Air Ontario flight from Montreal, he filed suit in Federal Court for $525,000 in damages (imagine how painful the sound of the English language must be to demand half-a-million dollars for suffering). The court ordered the airline to make a formal apology and pay him $5,375.95.
Grievance collectors such as Mr. Thibodeau are the spawn of our rights culture, which supposes that minorities live in a constant state of fear of oppression or discrimination. Our courts are so sensitive to their assumed frailty that they tend to punish even the slightest lapse of vigilance as a way of reassuring them that they are loved.
These guilt payouts are absurd, and will serve only to encourage other "coupon-cutter" copycats to shake down large corporations, which naturally regard the suits as a nuisance they willingly settle for what is to them piddling amounts.
The specific case involving Air Canada has a simple solution: Exempt it from the Official Languages Act. When Air Canada was still a Crown Corporation, compliance with the Act was non-negotiable. But the company has been fully private since 1989. Only subsequent acts of Parliament have obligated it to continue complying with regulations designed for the federal government and its commercial holdings (VIA Rail is another private corporation obligated to continue complying with the language regulations of the government, also its former owner).
Corporations that operate throughout the country -especially those that shuttle people back and forth across it -would be well advised to be capable of delivering that service in both official languages. But it is inappropriate that Ottawa force them to do so, especially since it serves mainly to enrich language vigilantes such as Mr. Thibodeau. There would be the predictable howls of outrage if the Harper government took such a step, but considering the difficulties English-speakers face in securing their language rights inside Quebec, it seems a small sacrifice to ask of Canada's francophones.
When supermarkets run out of discounted items, they offer disgruntled customers a free product. Next time Mr. Thibodeau tries his little trick, the airlines should offer him a discounted ticket or maybe a case of 7Up, and if that isn't good enough and he persists in filing yet another suit, the Federal Court should inform him -in both official languages -that he is wasting its time.
Source: National Post
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