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TORONTO — Ontario’s human rights tribunal has ordered a migrant worker to be paid $23,500 in damages after ruling he suffered racial abuse while working at a greenhouse in Leamington, Ont.

The tribunal found that Adrian Monrose, a St. Lucian migrant worker who came to Canada under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program in 2009, was subjected to racist slurs while working for Double Diamond Acres Ltd.

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According to the findings, Benji Mastronardi, one of Double Diamond’s owners, called workers “monkeys on a branch” during a workplace confrontation.

I find that the use of the term monkey to describe a black man in the demeaning manner the term was used in this case is clearly discriminatory

It also found Monrose was fired and sent back to St. Lucia shortly after complaining about the comments.

“In all of the circumstances the only reasonable conclusion to come to is that the applicant’s termination from employment and consequent repatriation was (Double Diamond’s) direct and only response to his human rights complaint about the monkey comment,” vice-chairman David Muir wrote in the decision.

“I find that the use of the term monkey to describe a black man in the demeaning manner the term was used in this case is clearly discriminatory.”

Monrose’s lawyer Shane Martinez says the St. Lucian native filed a human rights complaint with the help of a not-for-profit activist group for migrant workers.

Monrose has been awarded $5,500 in lost wages, $3,000 for damage to his dignity, feelings and self-respect and $18,000 for the violation of his right to be free from reprisal.

Martinez says the decision is a signal to the government that action is needed to address human rights abuses against migrant workers.

Files from Postmedia News