Man ordered to pay panhandler $8,000 for discrimination

“A Montreal man has been ordered to pay $8,000 to a panhandler after an email he wrote complaining about her presence outside a liquor store was deemed discriminatory by the province's human rights commission.

The incident dates back to 2010 and started at an SAQ liquor store in Montreal's Ahuntsic neighbourhood.

The woman involved is in her 60s and suffers from a degenerative bone disease, which prevents her from working. She receives social assistance, but makes ends meet by panhandling outside of the liquor store for a few hours on Friday and Saturday evenings.
According to evidence presented to Quebec’s human rights commission, the woman said she was always polite and never bothered anyone. She took adaptive transport to the Henri-Bourassa Boulevard store and made between $15 and $30 a day.

But one customer found her presence a nuisance and complained to the store manager in an email.

In that letter, the customer described the woman as overweight and a “drunk” with “no apparent IQ.”

“The letter goes on to talk about the city abolishing its prohibition on begging, and the problems he believed it has created. He then suggests five “solutions,” including one labelled the “Chinese solution” that proposes “a bullet to the neck and send the bill for the bullet to the deceased bum’s family.”

[link to www.cbc.ca]