A waiter in Vancouver who lost his job for being rude and aggressive claims he was actually fired for being too French.
Guillaume Rey started working as a waiter at Milestones in October 2015. He filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal against the restaurant and its parent company Cara Operations Ltd. after he was fired in August 2017. He alleges the accusations against him were a “discrimination against my culture” which “tends to be more direct and expressive.”
Rey’s complaint is a somewhat novel use of section 13 of the Human Rights Code — discrimination in employment — which doesn’t refer to French culture specifically, but does state that a person can’t be fired because of their ancestry or place of origin.
The restaurant applied to have the complaint dismissed on the basis that it had no reasonable prospect of success. But tribunal member Devyn Cousineau decided earlier this month that the complaint will proceed to a hearing.
Rey claims he was fired for his “direct, honest, and professional personality” and because he has high standards, which he learned in the French hospitality industry. Rey also says that his manager had “mentioned casually on more than one occasion, that it might be because of my culture that other staff members think I am being aggressive.”
According to Paul Venesoen — a lecturer in the department of French studies at Western University — people in France can be perceived as rude, especially when compared to Canadians.
Full article: http://calgaryherald.com/news/canada/not-rude-just-french-fired-b-c-waiter-files-human-rights-complaint/wcm/a2b02722-d494-41d9-a5d2-3f3c0196e488?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1522095568