WINNIPEG - Manitoba's grand chief called Air Canada's decision to pull flight crews from a downtown Winnipeg hotel "absolutely racist," and has asked the airline to apologize.
Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said Monday that Air Canada was irresponsible, ignorant and racist when it sent out a memo last month stating crews on layovers in Winnipeg would no longer be staying at the downtown Radisson hotel due to safety concerns.
The memo cites "approximately 1,000 displaced people from rural Manitoba" as a source of the safety concerns, noting they're expected to be "an issue" for the next 12 months.
About 700 flood evacuees from the Lake St. Martin First Nation have been living in Winnipeg hotels, including the Radisson, since May, when floodwaters overwhelmed the community's namesake lake. More than a thousand more from that community and others are staying in private accommodations in the city.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. They're picking on the First Nations people who've been flooded out," said Lake St. Martin Chief Adrian Sinclair.
Nepinak said he's aware of "certain specific individual people" among the evacuees who did cause a few problems, but said they've since been removed from the hotels.
"I think it's unfair to characterize any one group of people with broad strokes," Nepinak said. "It is entirely inappropriate for one of Canada's largest corporations to link the presence of First Nations citizens in Winnipeg's downtown core with any increased security risk. To attribute any community of people as posing an increased risk of violence or criminal activity is just, plain and simple, racist."
Nepinak said an apology from the airline "would absolutely go a long way" in resolving the issue and said he's awaiting a response from Air Canada.
Sinclair said his band's members are not responsible for downtown crime, and both he and Nepinak said the flood evacuees themselves have been lobbying to leave the downtown amid their own safety fears.
"I think Air Canada should know Winnipeg was the murder capital long before we were evacuated here," Sinclair said. "It was never safe."
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