Court Orders Landlord Pay to $12,000 to Arab Muslim Tenant for ‘Shoe Offense’

The complainants leveled against Alabi by Walid and Heba are perplexing and raise many questions as to how the courts intend to objectively evaluate discrimination cases against Arab Muslims.

‘His sins? John Alabi refused to remove his shoes when showing the bedroom where the couple prayed and while he always gave them the mandated 24-hour notice before showings, he didn’t always provide the five-minute heads-up they’d requested to ensure the wife was modestly dressed and they weren’t in the midst of their five daily prayers.’

5 minutes warning in addition to the 24-hour notice is well within the legal parameters of the law in Quebec, Canada. How should Alabi have been able to know that he needed to treat Arab Muslims differently than nationalized Canadian citizens?

“That same evening, Ismail heard loud pounding on the steps outside their door; Alabi said he was just shovelling the snow; she said it was intimidating and frightening. The couple called police.”

How many landlords think to inquire if tenants find the sound of shoveling sidewalks to be scary? Canada receives high levels of snowfall. Shoveling snow is a normal daily activity for Canadian landlords in the winter.

“The tribunal didn’t see it that way — especially after the tenants introduced their landlord’s Facebook page that had a “joke” about a devout Arab Muslim that they found offensive. Alabi told the hearing “he had freedom of speech and could post what he wanted on his Facebook page … He did not share the post to attack anyone. He said he shared it only because it made him laugh.”

Logic did not cause the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to award Walid and Heba Madkour a settlement of $12,000 for Alabi performing his duties as a landlord within the legal parameters of the law.

Alabi has the right to shovel the sidewalks, post jokes he personally finds funny on his FB page and he only needs to give his tenants the legally mandated notifications before entering the apartment.

Walid and Heba Madkour have the right to request Alabi remove his shoes before entering the bedroom, but that right is a personal request of goodwill, not a legally protected right.

There is a difference between personal wants and constitutionally protected rights. Not everyone is going to be able to quietly shovel sidewalks, a panderer to your personal religious beliefs, or take their shoes off when doing maintenance of your rented apartment, that is called life, not discrimination.

Walid and Heba are going to continue to face cultural conflicts and housing issues until they realize that people dislike being expected to give up their legal rights to pacify individual’s personal beliefs and feelings, not Arab Muslims.

Alabi might not be the most personable landlord in the world. But, he likely treats every tenant the same way. Most people don’t enjoy knowing their landlord might drop by at any time over a 24-hour span to show the apartment or do repairs. The difference is that people outside the protection of racial or religious minorities know that it’s just someone doing their job, and not based on their race or religion.

Politically correct discrimination laws stand to potentially discriminate against both parties if logic and compassion continue to be left out of the determining process.

Source: Toronto Sun