Northern Light
Superstar
I worked in the restaurant industry for over a decade. I have served people from all over the world, i have encounter many many customers who can't speak English. Did i throw a menu at them and act like total dick for not speaking English? Nope! I helped them the best i could with a smile and friendly manner.
That's good. (seriously); but you live in downtown Toronto, not a small town on the outskirts.
I'm not giving anyone a free pass for being rude; but there is a difference between someone who encounters people of diverse backgrounds multiple times each day/shift, and someone for whom it is comparatively rare.
Inferring one experience, in one place, once a general sense of place is problematic.
I've been in small town Ontario, and here, I mean further north, very small ..........I'm Caucasian, straight etc. which is offered only to say, I'm not someone who you would think would stand out in such a place, but when watering in some local watering holes in such places, I've very much felt like the outsider getting a dirty look.
I might infer something negative about that specific establishment.........maybe even that village/town.......but extrapolating that to all of Ontario wouldn't be reasonable.
I helped a young gentleman at Pearson airport recently, he was looking for the taxi line, he couldn't speaking English. he used his phone. I guided him into the right direction. He gave me a fist pump and the thumbs up.
Again, that's great, I don't recall suggesting you were somehow terribly inhospitable.
Simply, one ought not to just condemn an entire region or province by one negative experience.
Surely you've experienced rude, or indifferent service in Toronto. Likely more than once, probably from both male and female servers, more than likely of differing ages and backgrounds.
From that would you infer that all wait staff in restaurants in Toronto are indifferent?
That doesn't accord to me as reasonable.
If the rest of Canada tried this, they'd be rightly called racists!
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Montreal woman allegedly denied service in English by paramedic
A Montreal woman is speaking out after a paramedic in Côte Saint-Luc allegedly told her in French, “We’re in Quebec, we speak French.” Lana Mastromonaco had asked a paramedic to clarify a detail in English while overseeing her friend’s 91-year-old mother who was being treated by paramedics at...montreal.citynews.ca
Ummmm
That's right.......paramedics in Hamilton were criminally convicted for their role in a young man's death by failing to provide the appropriate standard of service.
Whether or not racism was involved may be a matter of conjecture..........but it certainly didn't look good.
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Again, the instance described above (in your link) was needless rude, no arguing that. But I don't think one can reasonably infer that that broadly reflects Quebecers anymore than one might infer those Hamilton paramedics are representative of all or most Ontarians.
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