SETTLEMENT DATE – DECEMBER 2019
On December 26, 2014, a woman moving in a motorized wheelchair and a service dog from the Mira Foundation telephones the Café Cherrier, a Parisian bistro, which has become an institution in Montreal because it has existed since the 1930s. She wants to make a reservation for the next evening to eat with family members.
She often walked past the Café Cherrier in the summer, but has never been there. So this is the opportunity to do it. At the end of the phone, a man she says she wants to book for the next evening. As she always does, she asked if the facility is wheelchair accessible.
When answered in the negative, she is even surprised.
A few days later, the RAPLIQ will file its complaint of discrimination based on disability, at the CDPDJ. The reason: Denial of indirect access.
The complainant requests the accessibility of the establishment and moral damages.
Mediation is refused by Café Cherrier and the file is therefore transferred to investigations. This will be followed by a long process of waiting for requests for expertise on both sides, report from architects, etc.
An amount of money was offered to the complainant, but she refused. The motion to institute proceedings is then filed with the Human Rights Tribunal (TDP). The hearing was scheduled to take place on October 22 and 23, 2019, when the respondent offers a counter offer which will be accepted in all:
Full accessibility of the terrace and the restaurant to people with disabilities;
Execution of works aimed at fitting out a complete toilet room on the ground floor.
No moral damages.
This regulation represents a kind of “jurisprudence” for the RAPLIQ, since, from memory, Café Cherrier is the only restaurant with a terrace on the private domain (attached to the building) and therefore not subject to the Code of Construction, so that there was no obligation ACCORDING TO THE CONSTRUCTION CODE for the owner of the building than to make his building and / or his terrace universally accessible.
However, from the standpoint of the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms not to be accessible, it violates several articles of the Charter.