A Montreal day care has been ordered to pay a family $5,000 after refusing a spot for their child due to his severe allergies. In a recent judgment, the Human Rights Tribunal declared that the kid’s allergies to eggs, sesame, nuts, peanuts, almonds, beans, peas and lentils were comparable to a disability and that refusing him a spot at the day care constituted an act of discrimination. According to the ruling on Aug. 18, the parents of the child, who was two-and-a-half, were moving from Ottawa to Montreal and had inquired about a spot at École Montessori International Montreal in November 2021. They informed the Montreal day care management about their son’s allergies. The day care responded less than two hours later by email saying it would be “impossible” to accommodate the child “given the possibility—even if unintentional—of contact with the other children’s food (from our caterer’s menu). We prefer to be transparent so as not to put your child at risk,” according to the ruling. When one of his parents asked if their son could bring his own food, which is what they did at a day care in Ottawa, the day care responded by saying it would be too challenging to supervise meal times with all of the children. The boy’s mother, according to the judgment, saw this as a “great injustice” that felt like “a slap in my face.” “‘I felt truly powerless,’ she said, lamenting that she hadn’t even had the opportunity to explain the nature of the allergies and their severity,” the ruling noted. The refusal also took a toll on the boy’s father, who realized, “It’s going to be a problem in his life,” even though “it’s not his fault,” the ruling said. The following year, the family filed a complaint with Quebec’s Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission, known as the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ). After an investigation, the CDPDJ ruled in 2024 there was sufficient evidence that the boy was a victim of discrimination. After the day care and its director, Sandra Grace Albers, didn’t act on the commission’s proposed remedial measures, the CDPDJ filed a complaint with Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal. In its 29-page ruling issued last month, the tribunal disagreed with Albers’ argument that it would be too difficult to monitor meal times with the child present because of the number of children enrolled at the day care at the time. “The Court finds it difficult to conceive that a facility whose premises are large enough to accommodate 41 children—but which, in fact, has only 27 — would be unable to temporarily set up a small side table at meal times to allow a child to eat at a safe distance from the others as a precautionary measure,” wrote Justice Christina Brunelle. The tribunal ruled that the day care and Albers failed in their duty to accommodate the child’s allergies, which it considered to be a disability. It ordered both parties to pay the parents each $2,000 and the child $1,000 for compensatory damages for emotional distress and punitive damages for an infringement of his rights. Justice Brunelle said the parents were “indirect victims of the discrimination suffered by their son and are therefore entitled to compensation for the emotional distress they have endured.”
