Woman wants action after alleged racism at store
Loblaw says it is taking the complaint seriously, is providing more staff training
One of the women at the centre of an incident involving allegedly racist behaviour by a grocery-store clerk says the employee should be fired, and the store should introduce sensitivity training.
Crystal Stone said she planned to make those requests at a meeting with the manager of the Confederation-area Real Canadian Superstore in Saskatoon on Friday, just over a week after the incident.
“I don’t want an apology; something needs to be done. They have to make an example out of this. If they do take it seriously, then through their disciplinary actions it’ll show,” Stone said.
Whether that will happen remains unclear.
Catherine Thomas, a spokeswoman for Superstore’s parent company, Loblaw Companies Limited., said in a prepared statement that the complaint is being taken seriously, and the customers have been contacted.
“Our goal is to ensure no customer ever feels they were treated differently in our stores because of their ethnic background.
“We sincerely regret this did not happen in this case,” the statement read.
“(The) company has taken recent steps to provide additional training and education to our entire network of stores about racial profiling, unconscious bias, and the need to interact with all customers equally and with respect.”
Stone and her sister, Odera Wapass, were shopping at the supermarket last Thursday when, she says, a clerk asked if they had enough money to pay for their groceries. While the clerk told her she asks everyone the same question, Stone said she and Wapass were the only people questioned — and it shocked Wanda Friesen, who was also in the line. After the interaction, Friesen introduced herself to Stone and Wapass in the parking lot. She went back in with them to take a stand.
The incident gained attention after Friesen wrote about it on social media and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix published an opinion column about the importance of taking action in difficult situations.
Stone said she believes similar interactions happen every day in Saskatchewan, and only a handful — like an incident at a Regina Canadian Tire last summer — get public attention.
“If it goes (unreported) then nothing is ever really done about it. The situations get swept under the rug … Racism has to stop, and it’s got to start somewhere, anywhere, even in this store,” she said.
In a news release issued Thursday evening, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations called for Loblaws to take “immediately disciplinary action” against the cashier.
“I want people to know that racism exists, it’s a deadly disease, it affects everybody and it needs to stop — and society plays a role in it, everywhere and anywhere we go,” Stone said.