Canada: First Nations elder man accuses Canadian Tire of humiliation
Regina, Dec 22 (IBNS): An elderly indigenous man recently accused Canadian Tire, a retail company in Toronto, of humiliating him by searching over the suspicion of theft, media reports said.
Gordon Albert (78) went with his wife to buy a gift but failed to get the desirable one.
The conflict occurred when Gordon was coming out of the store and the anti-theft detector beeped following which a female employee stopped asking him to take off his coat.
The lady guard then search all the pockets of the coat, according to Gordon's wife.
"That lady took his cigarettes out, took his phone out. She was just going through his pockets," Gordon's wife told Star.
She added in saying: "He said, 'What else do you want me to take off? My clothes?"
Gordon, who felt the incident to be embarrassing, said: "They thought that since we're native we'd steal something."
Gordon even said the experience is unprecedented as he is a regular customer. "I make enough money that I can buy whatever I want. I don't have to go that route," the elderly man said.
He even said the store employees later found that the bell beeped as some other customer was buying things.
However the Canadian Tire's store manager apologised to Gordon. "He said 'sorry, sorry sorry.' I said 'that's not going to help," Gordon said.
Saying the matter to have been resolved, the company said: "Recent conversations between the store and Mr. Albert and his family have been positive and productive, and the store considered the matter to have been resolved."
Gordon even told Star that he won't go to the store anymore for shopping.
This is not an one-off incident where a First Nations person accused Canadian Tire of harassing him.
In July, a Canadian Tire worker had reportedly thrown out a First Nation customer over suspected theft.
A First Nation man, Kamao Cappo, went to Canadian Tire in Regina where he was attacked by an employee as the latter suspected Cappo of stealing a chainsaw.
Cappo shared a Facebook live video of the whole incident and stated to have been abused by the employee after he refused to leave the store.
In a Facebook live video on July 26, Cappo said: "This happened today. We walked in to buy a chainsaw. We picked one and I was about to pay for it but the fuel mixture (40/1) was not to our liking, so we turned it over to customer service and went back to get another one. This general manager for some reason thought we were stealing. He became abusive when I refused to obey his order to leave the store."
In another live video on Facebook, Cappo was seen to be guided by the employee out of the store.
Later the worker was sacked.
(Reporting by Suman Das)
Image: Creative Commons.
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