MANDARIN IN CANADA GIVES A FREE DINNER ONLY IF YOU ARE A CANADIAN CITIZEN

To commemorate its 35^th   anniversary, Mandarin is offering its famous Chinese buffet for free to all Canadian citizens in Ontario this Canada Day. The only catch is that you need to prove that you are a Canadian citizen,

This offer is not available to those Canadians who don’t have a passport, a citizenship card or a birth certificate. For example children don’t necessary have those forms of identifications so if their their parents have any one of those documents but their children don’t have them, will their children be denied entry into the Mandarin restaurant? Does their 17-year-old son or daughter have to prove that he or she are Canadians?

Here is what Mandarin has to say why they are offering the free buffets to Canadians.  

“We, at Mandarin, are so proud to be Canadian and Canada Day serves as the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude to both our country and our customers.” unquote

I should point out that in several previous years past., Mandarin canceled their free buffets on Canada Days. I don’t know why they cancelled.

What about those thousands of refugees who live in Canada as residents and who are applying for their Canadian citizenship?

By refusing them a free buffet because they are not Canadian citizens yet is a slap in their faces. It is an outrageous example as a form of discrimination against people from other nations who have chosen to permanently live in Canada, the country they wish to be citizens of.

Imagine how you would feel if you were a refugee who has been accepted to live in Canada and you have to wait for three years before you become a Canadian citizen and you stood in line for four blocks during heavy rain for three hours and then you were told when you reached the door, “We don’t except non Canadians today,” 

Suppose an elderly American veteran comes to Canada to visit his grandchildren who areCanadian citizens. And include the fact that during the Second World War, he saved the lives of ten Canadian soldiers. How would he feel if he couldn’t share the free buffet with his Canadian grandchildren because he chose to remain an America citizen where he was born?

Suppose a Canadian veteran who is currently homeless and he has no passport or birth certificate, will he be denied a free buffet at Mandarins on Canada Day?

I have lived in Canada almost 86 years and I have traveled in 35 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Central America, North America and the Far East and I have also been in hundreds of cities world-wide and I haven’t heard of anything like this form of discrimination. Admittedly, there was discrimination against the Blacks and Jews in the past. The Blacks were denied service in restaurants in the United Sates and Jews were denied the right to rent a room in a hotel in both the United States and in Canada. Fortunately, those days are long gone.

Canada is proud of its standards of living and that includes that  all people in our country are to be to be treated honestly, equally  and without any form of prejudice.

Prejudice refers to an unsubstantiated, negative pre-judgment of individuals or groups, usually because of ethnicity, religion or race. Discrimination is the exclusion of individuals or groups from full participation in society because of prejudice. 

Prejudice refers to an unsubstantiated, negative pre-judgment of individuals or groups, usually because of ethnicity, religion or race Discrimination is the exclusion of individuals or groups from full participation in society because of prejudice. Despite Canada's long history of prejudice and discrimination, efforts have been made in recent generations to make the country a mosaic of peoples and cultures. Equality is constitutionally protected today by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Discrimination is the exclusion of individuals or groups from full participation in society because of prejudice.

If the Human Rights authorities gave their OK for Mandarin to deny access to non-Canadians, then they should also share the same shame that that applies to the Mandarin restaurants.

Mandarin is a huge enterprise in Canada and perhaps because of its size, they can get away with that kind of discrimination but would a small cafe in Ontario get the OK from the Human Rights authorities to deny non-citizens its service on Canada Day?  The owner of that small café would get about as much sympathy from the Human Rights authorities as a mosquito gets when it lands on your arm and begins sucking  out your blood.