Knauff, a veteran of Ontario’s provincial forest firefighting force, has been vegan for over 25 years. In 2017, he was working long hours in tough conditions fighting wildfires in British Columbia. According to non-profit Animal Justice, which campaigns for stronger animal laws, Knauff’s employer failed to provide appropriate vegan meals for him at the basecamp where he was stationed.
He was often served meals containing animal products, or nutritionally inadequate meals containing no source of protein. Sometimes no food was provided for him at all.
Despite repeated attempts to work with management to improve the situation, nothing changed.
After Knauff was disciplined and suspended without pay after expressing his frustration, he sued his employer.
I gotta side with him on this one. While his is a lifestyle choice, some people do have special dietary needs. If you want people to work in these types of conditions you have to take their needs into consideration.
I want to side with him, and I think there is a good argument that he’s right, but yours has a fatal flaw:
If you want people to work in these types of conditions you have to take their needs into consideration.
The fact that they fired him indicates they don’t want him to work in these types of conditions. They don’t want the logistics hassle associated with his chosen lifestyle.
The article claims that repeated attempts were made to negotiate with management to “improve” the situation. Those attempts could be considered negotiations. He may or may not have secured promises from management in exchange for his continued employment. The breaking of those promises could potentially be considered fraud.
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More so it would be provided if there was a reason
Not liking something doesn’t count as a reason
Some people have medical or religious dietary restrictions. I think the employer would have to accommodate those. Ethical restrictions is a grey area.
But why are ethical restrictions any less valid than religious dietary restrictions?
He argued that veganism was protected as a “creed”. The Ontario Human Rights Code considers 5 factors in determining whether a belief system constitutes a creed. Under that code, a “creed”:
- Is sincerely, freely and deeply held
- Is integrally linked to a person’s identity, self-definition and fulfilment
- Is a particular and comprehensive, overarching system of belief that governs one’s conduct and practices
- Addresses ultimate questions of human existence, including ideas about life, purpose, death, and the existence or non-existence of a Creator and/or a higher or different order of existence
- Has some “nexus” or connection to an organization or community that professes a shared system of belief.
Veganism clearly meets 1, 2, and 5, but I’m not quite seeing 3 or 4.
I think you could probably argue that ethical veganism is a deeply held belief that humans are not inherently superior to other animals, and that said animals also have emotions, etc.
This would address 3 as it would definitely govern one’s conduct and practices: not exploiting animals in any way.
I would also argue that it addresses ultimate questions about human’s place in the living world, partially addressing 4.
Also, looking at federal law (https://www.justice.gc.ca/fra/sjc-csj/dlc-rfc/ccdl-ccrf/check/art2a.html), looks like “liberté de conscience et de religion” should be interpreted widely:
La « liberté de conscience et de religion » devrait être interprétée largement et s’étendre aux croyances dictées par la conscience, qu’elles soient fondées sur la religion ou sur une morale laïque et les termes « conscience » et « religion » ne devraient pas être considérés comme tautologiques quand ils peuvent avoir un sens distinct, quoique relié.
So Ontario’s interpretation here is potentially unconstitutional, especially if their decision hinges on something as minor as what a belief system has to say about a Creator.
EDIT: Not a vegan at all, but I can understand the ethics.
I agree with this, though “lifestyle choice” can make it sound like a mere preference. Preferences aren’t the same as sincerely held moral beliefs, and they shouldn’t be treated as flippantly as these people treated him.
Restrictive personal choices aren’t a protected class if it’s not imaginary sky-person friendship.
It’s not really restrictive when there are 40,000 plants you can cook with.
It is restrictive by definition, but it’s in the top 5 most common dietary restrictions, and it’s a government program for forest firefighters, not a dinner party with your friend’s boyfriend. Figure it out and make it work!
Eating healthily as a vegan, especially in a job that is very physical (thus requiring very careful management of protein) is quite a bit more restrictive.
That being said, the employer are fuckwits. They don’t cook the food themselves; they very obviously cater. And caterers have catered (hah!) to vegans for decades now.
Maybe things are different today, but my old and limited experience is that during a fire, there were warehouses with pre-prepared pallets for x number of people with basic foods and equipment. Sometimes management would run to the local small town store and clean them out to send some fresh food to the line, but realize it was still a small town store with extremely limited selection/stock.
Catering? in the middle of nowhere?
You think those pre-prepared pallets just came out of nowhere?
Catering isn’t just taking food to fancy houses and bar mitzvahs.
Let me clarify the ‘warehouse’ was in the local compound and was a glorified large shed. Staff went through everything every spring to confirm that all food stuffs were within date, and would be during the year. The blankets/sleeping bags were not chewed up by local mice, and that no equipment had gone missing since the previous year. Also anything mechanical was tested to ensure it would work.
And the foodstuffs were still catered (unless you were fed only MRIs or the like, and if you were, you have my condolences!). They contract out the foods and when that happens they also ask for X% kosher, Y% halal, Z% vegan, etc. based on the make-up of their crews. Or, rather, they should.
Because stored food can have labels. “Vegetarian meal” being a very common label on the side of catered, stored food.
How much do you want to bet that if they have Jewish firefighters there’s kosher food available? Same thing. Same logistics. If they can cater to Jews (or Muslims (or Hindus (or Buddhists (or …)))) they can cater to vegans. They chose not to cater to the vegan because there was no fantasy sky figure involved. And that makes them assholes.
Really, unless it causes a ridiculous rise in costs, they could just stock only vegan meals, which also fulfill the requirements for some of the religious restricted diets. If a non-vegan has to eat vegan meals, well, that might not be ideal for them, but as long as the meals are nutritionally adequate, it’s much less of a problem than the reverse.
That’s what happens when I request Kosher meals in the last decade or so on flights. Vegan satisfies Vegetarian, Kosher, Halal, etc. so Vegan meals for all special meal requests.
You’ll get no argument from me, here, but WOW would the rank and file whine loudly!
And yet all of them taste better when deep fried in animal fat.
Most deep frying is done in vegetable or seed oils.
That is true that veg/seed oils are the most common, but a lot of places use animal-based mediums like duck fat and they shallow-fry instead.
I couldn’t tell you if it actually tasted any better, but it’s annoying as fuck when you look through the menu to find out you can only have fries for lunch, then when it’s brought out the server says something like “…and our famous duck-fat fries. You like them so much it’s all you wanted for lunch?”
This is the key thing, right here.
Although Veganism is a laudable choice, especially considering how meat production contributes so disproportionately to climate change and ecosystem destruction, it is a personal choice and not a fundamental dietary restriction that limits what you can actually safely eat. While an employer should make reasonable allowances to allow you to meet your own personal restrictions, meals in the bush, well away from infrastructure, makes any such allowance that much more onerous for an employer to meet.
Don’t get me wrong, tho - I am not a corporatist. Nothing would have made me happier than the company being found at fault and getting nailed to the wall. Corporations will try to get away with everything they legally can, and a lot that they legally cannot, so long as no-one complains. But the legal ruling did follow the law, and the law was very clear.
I was vegan for a few years and from personal experiences I can say that eating meat/dairy after months/years of a strictly vegan diet will fuck you up gastrointestinally. Your body just doesn’t have the same gut fauna anymore that was able to digest animal products. It would be hard to expect someone to fight a fire while they are experiencing cramps, bloating, and gastrointestinal distress.
Then the business decision comes down to whether supporting your dietary restrictions costs more or less than releasing you and hiring someone else.
I have to agree with you here.
Which is a fucking shame. The article says that the judge said the only reason he lost the case was because veganism has no deity. He practices his beliefs more sincerity and deeply than any Christian, but because there’s no deity involved he gets shit.
That sounds like a logistics issue. Are there vegan MREs? The station should order some in along with other non vegan options to have emergency rations ready in these situations.
There are certainly vegetarian MREs. Idk about vegan. Given the compromises to taste that is made with any MREs it shouldn’t be too difficult to develop with substitutes for all animal products.
