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Jamie Sarkonak: Serving Starbucks in English might be 'racism,' Saskatchewan court says

Human rights commission must reconsider case of woman who was refused service in Tagalog

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In Saskatchewan, the authorities are currently deciding whether to treat Tagalog like an official language.

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It all started at the Starbucks in Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital. Vanessa Casila, a Filipina woman, tried to order in Tagalog. The employee taking her order refused, saying she would receive a formal reprimand from the manager if she went along with it. Casila then filed a human rights complaint, claiming that the “English only” policy amounted to discrimination based on race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, and nationality.

Jamie Sarkonak: Serving Starbucks in English might be 'racism,' Saskatchewan court says Back to video

Casila also claimed that Starbucks’ language policy prohibited staff from communicating amongst themselves or with the public in any language other than English or French. This, she said, was borne from customer complaints to the company about Starbucks staff not speaking English.

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The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint quickly, stating that Casila hadn’t put forth enough evidence to get it past the threshold for deeper consideration. It needed to have “reasonable grounds to believe that there had been discrimination based on a prohibited ground,” which was not made out, in the eyes of the commission.

Casila was given a second chance to make her point. She argued that the English-only policy was based on racist customer complaints, that it disproportionately affected the many Filipino employees who worked at the hospital Starbucks, and in an indirect way, it affected her. She cited a memo that was sent to one particular employee, reminding them to speak English in the interest of not excluding workers and customers. The characterization of non-English speech as disrespectful, she said, implicitly labelled Tagalog speakers as rude.

Again, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission dismissed her: while there were some contexts where language was protected (such as housing), transactions were not one of them; further, as a non-employee, she couldn’t make a complaint about a policy for employee conduct.

But it didn’t end there. Casila took the matter up to the Court of King’s Bench, and there, Justice R. Shawn Smith sent the case back to the human rights commission for reconsideration because its reasons for dismissing the complaint were inadequate. While the commission’s dismissal of the complaint was “not unreasonable” on the issue of language-based discrimination, it was nevertheless too quick in rejecting the woman’s case.

“The Commission had before it an allegation pertaining to the English-only policy that claimed it was not only unnecessarily broad and disrespectful but a deliberate act of racism against Filipino employees,” wrote the court.

“Nowhere in its decision does it consider this argument or the supporting evidence provided by Ms. Casila. This is concerning seeing its centrality to Ms. Casila’s complaint, which claimed that the policy was racially motivated, not related to simply ensuring work-related tasks could be performed. Ms. Casila claimed that this then impacted her indirectly as a Filipina customer.”

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The court mused about a case out of B.C. from 2022, regarding a worker who was asked to speak English on the job rather than Tagalog, which said that “it may be discriminatory to prohibit first language use without justification or based solely on unfounded concerns about what non-English speakers might be discussing.” Saskatchewan courts aren’t obligated to follow rulings made in B.C., but this judge appeared to feel that it was relevant.

But the court’s ultimate concern was that Casila’s complaint was dismissed largely because she had not outright been denied service. She still ordered whatever she was trying to order at Starbucks, just not in her preferred language. Not an issue for the commission, but the court reviewing the decisions disagreed because this “failed to address forms of discrimination other than the complete denial of services.”

“Considering these deficiencies as a whole, I am unable to find that the Commission’s decision was reasonable,” concluded Justice Smith.

Zoom out of the legal technicalities and this whole situation gets really ridiculous really fast. Canada is a nation built from English and French culture, with official languages that reflect that heritage. There is a reasonable expectation upon immigrants to integrate because failing to do so would fracture the country. A common tongue in the public sphere is essential to having a cohesive nation.

Starbucks, seemingly aware of this, implemented a reasonable rule to make sure that a certain level of respect for public space is maintained. Whether this is a human rights violation shouldn’t even be a question, let alone a months-long proceeding. Where the discussion really belongs is in the rest of Canada’s workplaces. Quebec is shameless in giving its answer, ordering all businesses to operate in French; English Canada should be angling to do the same.

The case of the English-only Starbucks is a product of a culture that doesn’t have the courage to reinforce its standards in an era of high immigration. It unfolded the way it did because courts and human rights tribunals tend to err on the side of multiculturalism over the common Canadian way, resulting in precedents that made it a more borderline case than it should be.

In the absence of clear rules that set language standards in the public space, this is what we get. Mandating Starbucks orders in Tagalog might be the question today, but tomorrow, it could be full-on government services.

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