WATCH ABOVE: An indoor children’s place centre is in the middle of controversy over how it treated a little girl with cerebral palsy. Christina Stevens reports.
TORONTO – A Guelph family has filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal after treatment they received at a children’s indoor play centre.
Four-year-old Eloise Dupuis loves drums, playing with her big sister and has energy to spare.
When asked where her favourite place to go is, her response is rapid fire, “Funmazing”.
Funmazing Playcentre is an indoor playground for children, in Guelph.
Eloise has been there many times before, with no problem. But that changed this past weekend.
Matthew Dupuis said when he took his daughter Eloise, who has cerebral palsy, he told staff she would have to keep her running shoes on, over leg braces. He was told the little girl could not go on the play structure, because they have a strict “socks only” policy.
“The woman said she can’t go on the play structure if she has her shoes on, it would cause damage to the structure wear and tear,” said Dupuis.
He decided they should just leave, but he didn’t want to tell Eloise why.
“I said it was just too busy in there and she started to cry.”
Once Eloise’s mother found out what had happened, she said she phoned the owner and explained that she believed the play centre was breaking the law.
Instead the Dupuis’ shared their story on Facebook and has since gone viral and has been shared more than 5, 000 times. They also filed a Human Rights complaint.
At the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, they said about one-third of the inquiries are related to discrimination due to a physical disability.
Bruce Best, legal counsel for the Centre, said in general terms, a service provider has to show that accommodating someone would pose a health and safety risk or cause undue hardship.
“If you are going to refuse to accommodate someone, there has to be very strong justification for it. It is a very high standard to meet,” said Best.
Funmazing declined several requests from Global News for an interview. On the company’s Facebook page, it claims that running shoes on the play structure are unsafe and that they were following the manufacturer’s recommendations for “socks only”.
The owner of Funmazing, Gio Salgo, sent Global News a statement apologizing for the incident.
“We offer our deepest apologies to all those who were hurt and offended by what happened. We will provide a shoe-cover system in order to provide the appropriate surface that would allow a smooth and safe descent down our slides,” read part of the statement.
Tracy Dupuis said it’s a start but added they are still pursuing the Human Rights complaint to educate people on the issue and for every family still impacted by discrimination.
“I had prepared myself for school yard bullying. I never thought I would have to be on the receiving end from an adult for my daughter,” said Dupuis.
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