'Go back to China,' woman says repeatedly at Toronto store
A woman’s angry tirade against several employees who couldn’t speak English at a Chinese speciality grocery store in Toronto has gone viral over the weekend.
Teenager Frank Hong captured the incident on his cellphone and posted the video to Facebook last Friday. The 85-second video shows a woman in a wheelchair attempting to order food and becoming enraged with staff working at a Foody Mart located in Scarborough, a suburban district of Toronto. The woman claims she’s trying to order food, but since no one can speak to her in English, she doesn’t know how much items cost.
“After three minutes of constant, racist verbal abuse and after trying to intervene, I started to film this video,” Hong writes on Facebook.
The unidentified woman can be heard repeatedly saying that workers who can’t speak English should “go back to China,” insisting that this is the law in Canada.
“If they’re going to work here, then you need to know the English language or the French language,” she claims. “Not one of these people English.”
Under Canada’s Official Languages Act, it is actually only required for federal government employees to be able to speak both English and French.
Throughout the encounter, several other customers can also be seen attempting to de-escalate the situation by offering to help translate between the irate woman and staff.
“And shout out to the lady who tried to help despite the terrible situation. I have never seen someone with so much kindness and compassion, it is truly breathtaking,” Hong writes. “Love in the face of hate, she is really a role model for all of us.”
With more than 600,000 views and counting, the now-viral video has gained widespread attention and has also attracted thousands of comments on Facebook.
“Racism and xenophobia isn’t far from us nor has it gone away,” Hong says. “As Canadians we think we are safe from these disgusting attitudes and behaviours but we aren’t. It has only gotten worse recently.”
As for the woman in the wheelchair, CTV Toronto reports she continued to argue with the Foody Mart employees for approximately 15 to 20 minutes before eventually leaving the store without buying anything.
No official complaint has been made to authorities and police are not investigating the matter at this time.
