Mandarin’s Canadians-only deal is sweet, not sour
If there’s one thing Canadians love, it is free food.
To witness the lineups outside Honest Ed’s during the Christmas turkey giveaway each year was to be dazzled by our national fervour for gratis grub. You get a smaller taste of this zeal for complimentary chow at any “sample” kiosk in a grocery store. The staffer manning that makeshift booth in an apron could literally offer anything in a tiny paper cup — “Would you like to try a dust bunny flambéed in shaving cream?” — and there’d be cart gridlock as shoppers salivate for aloe vera.
You want to see a stampede? Sneak into the Star newsroom just before an all-office email goes out about free sandwiches or cookies or any foodstuff at the reception desk. My God, it’s like Black Friday outside a Best Buy. I’ve seen brilliant journalists jostle with colleagues and move at the speed of light for a day-old muffin.
But when it comes to free food, no good deed goes unpunished.
Behold the sour backlash to what should really just be a sweet Canada Day promotion from the good folks at Mandarin. To celebrate its 40th anniversary — the Chinese-Canadian restaurant chain is truly a great immigrant success story — Mandarin is offering a “free buffet meal” on July 1 to “all Canadian citizens.”
This is the fifth time Mandarin has served up free food.
But this time, for reasons that are baffling, there is deep-fried outrage.
The problem, according to the outraged, is that only Canadian citizens qualify. As the restaurant notes on its website, cheapo stomach-stuffers must provide “proof” they are Canadian, vis-à-vis a birth certificate, passport or citizenship card.
Granted, it’s a little odd to pack your travel documents before arriving at a Chinese restaurant that also offers potato salad and apple pie. But this entirely reasonable rule — this is a CANADA DAY CELEBRATION, for crying out loud — is now getting lambasted as “discriminatory” and “unCanadian.” Huh? There is talk of human-rights violations and threats of boycotts and possible lawsuits. Oh, Canada. It’s as if Mandarin decreed: “Free crab legs for anyone with green eyes and O-negative blood who is left-handed and blessed with a four-octave singing range.”
If you read the fine print on any contest or giveaway in this great land of ours, here are five words you’re likely to encounter: “Open only to Canadian residents.” That’s not bias or prejudice or an attack on newcomers or proof of nativist treachery — it’s a condition of entry, and it’s as controversial as a pair of comfy slippers.
Other asterisks for the free buffet include “no reservations” and “dress code in effect.” Does this mean timestrapped nudists can take Mandarin to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario?
We are a nation of rules. Or at least, we ought to be.
Should non-citizens be allowed to vote? Should 10-yearolds buy cigarettes? Should someone who is almost legally blind, as I am, be allowed to get a pilot’s license? Should a millennial qualify for a senior’s discount at Shoppers Drug Mart? Should an able-bodied driver snag a handicapped parking spot because he’s in a rush?
No, no, no, no and absolutely not.
And in this age of ridiculous outrage, do the entitled snowflakes now piling on Mandarin — these are the same lax-rule monsters who sneak a 10th item into the 1-9 Express Lane or who believe Scrabble is grossly unjust to the illiterate — not understand that restaurants are totally free to ad-lib their on-the-house policies?
There is no place for the state in the bedrooms and buffets of the nation.
Have you ever hit up a local joint with someone famous? I’ve done that a few times and it’s an eye-opener. All kinds of free stuff starts landing on the table without warning or explanation. And it’s not just celebrities who get gustatory comps.
The key to free food is special occasions, you know, like Canada Day.
Ed Mirvish wasn’t giving away free turkeys on some random Tuesday in July.
That said, when I’m out for dinner and see another patron react with startled glee as a group of servers carries forth a slab of chocolate cake with a twinkling candle while belting out a bastardized version of “Happy Birthday,” I never think, “Hey, where’s my free dessert? This is discrimination! This is un-Canadian!”
I just realize, oh yeah, it’s not my birthday.
If I owned a restaurant — and it’s always been a dream — I think I’d give free food to anyone who was not mortally offended by Mandarin’s 2019 Canada Day promotion this long weekend. The company does not deserve this blowback. This is an act of goodwill. Mandarin is giving free food to CANADIANS because they are grateful for everything CANADA has given to them.
It’s a nice gesture, end of story.
To conclude otherwise is to binge at a smorgasbord of silliness.