Knauff alleges the ministry discriminated against him on the basis of his creed by failing to provide food that accommodated his personal commitment to ethical veganism and then disciplined him when he spoke up. He claims he’s been subjected to further reprisal by his employer ever since. According to Knauff: 'Dinner would be a spinach salad. It was just insane. I’ve been out there fighting fires for 16 hours and you think a spinach salad is going to cut it? One day, my only source of protein was a single black bean'.
MICHELE MANDEL: Adam Knauff is badly needed; he should be in the bush fighting the wildfires raging throughout Ontario and much of the country this Canada Day weekend. But the forest firefighter and crew leader with 15 years of invaluable experience is instead at home in Kenora, on leave from his job with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry after years, he said, of fruitlessly trying to get his bosses to take his veganism seriously.
Their disrespect and lack of accommodation became so bad that Knauff launched what could be a precedent-setting human rights case against his employer in 2018. But more than five years later, his complaint continues to languish in the system while he still suffers from the firestorm of backlash that erupted around the world after it was made public.
“Why am out there risking my life for people who hate me?” asked a frustrated Knauff, 42, in a phone interview. “I know how hated I am”…
Knauff became vegetarian at 13 and vegan in 2008 because of his moral and ethical opposition to the abuse and slaughter of animals. “To me, veganism is not a ‘preference’ or a trendy fad,” he wrote in his human rights complaint. “It is a commitment to a way of life and a strongly held belief system that impacts my decisions and my interactions on a daily — if not hourly — basis.”
His case centres on whether veganism is a form of creed — the definition of which was expanded by the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2015 to include non-religious belief systems.
A forest firefighter since 2008, Knauff said his bosses knew he was an ethical vegan and were “fairly good” at accommodating his dietary needs on the job. That changed when he was deployed in July 2017 to the evacuated town of Williams Lake, B.C., to help put out the massive forest fires raging in the north of the province.
Ontario was running the B.C. base camp, so they knew about his dietary requirements and he’d also filled out a standard food information form for the trip. But after Knauff put in 14- to 16-hour days in extreme heat and exhausting conditions he’d get back to camp, he said, to find there was nothing for him to eat.
“Dinner would be a spinach salad,” he recalled. “It was just insane. I’ve been out there fighting fires for 16 hours and you think a spinach salad is going to cut it?”
One day, his only source of protein was a single black bean, Knauff said, while on others he was forced to go hungry after he wasn’t provided with any food that was vegan or uncontaminated by animal products. After nine days, he began to feel physically ill and mentally groggy. Every time he complained, he said, he was told they were working on it…
When Knauff swore at a chef after witnessing him use his bloody hands on his vegan hamburger, he was reprimanded for his language… He was also banned from fighting fires outside the province for the remainder of 2017 and all of 2018.
Knauff alleged the ministry discriminated against him on the basis of his creed by failing to provide food that accommodated his “personal commitment to ethical veganism” and then disciplined him when he spoke up. He claims he’s been subjected to further reprisal by his employer ever since.
If he were Muslim and only ate halal food or Jewish and only ate kosher, they would have had to accommodate him, Knauff argued. One boss told him he’d bend over backward for allergies, “but dietary ‘preferences?’ Nope.”…
The ministry denies his claims and said Knauff’s “vegan status is a sincerely held lifestyle choice, but does not meet the legal definition of creed.“
While he waited endlessly for a hearing, he was told by the human rights tribunal to document every time he was served non-vegan food…
“I can’t anymore. I can’t handle it. I cannot be given another hamburger and have to take another picture of it to send to them,” he explained. “It just got worse and worse.”
After five years, Knauff has had enough of the ridicule and mistreatment. He’s been on a leave of absence since last July. “It’s like being the whistleblower and you run out of air.”
His career is in ruins and his controversial human rights case is moving at a snail’s pace. The tribunal finally scheduled it for September — but only for a preliminary hearing. In a ruling released last week, the advocacy group Animal Justice lost its bid for intervenor status — which it had filed in 2020.
Meanwhile, the wildfires burn and he’s not out there. “We’re having the worst fire season in Canadian history. All bases across Ontario are understaffed,” Knauff said. SOURCE…
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