“Mother fights for right to nurse child in pool” Star, Nov 12/08

Let me be sure I got this right:

Ellie Karkouti, herself an expectant mom, owns a commercial swimming pool in York Region. Cinira Longuinho, who immigrated from Brazil just four years ago, went swimming with her 20-month-old daughter in Ms. Karkouti’s pool on Monday, October 24th .She decide to nurse her daughter in the pool. Not on the deck, not in a corner of the pool area; no, in the pool. Ms. Karkouti asks her to suckle her child out of the pool, in the change room. Seems reasonable to me.

Ms Longuinho, to whom English is a second language, took umbrage to this rather sensible request, and, returning four days later, on Friday the 28th, with a few other women supporters, instigated a “peaceful protest for breastfeeding” against Ms. Karkouti and her Aqua Centre, who then had to hire private guards to protect her premises.

Now, Ms. Longuinho wants the Ontario Human Rights Commission to investigate why she wasn’t allowed to suckle her kid in the public pool! Have I got it right so far?

What blows my mind is how quickly newcomers to these blessed shores learn their civil rights here, and how ardently they pursue these rights as soon as they feel victimized by the slightest real or perceived offence.

I was an immigrant once, and more times than I care to remember was I “discriminated” against; called a D.P. and told to come back when I could speak English. It never occurred to me to complain, and if I had, I would have been told that if I did not like it here, I could go back to whence I came.

With all the unfairness, real discrimination and serious hurts in this world, we have a newly minted Canadian who wishes to waste public money by having the Human Rights Commission “investigate” why she got her nose out of joint. Then, to top it of, it is front page news in the Star –colour photos and all.