The Canadian Press
NORTH BATTLEFORD, Sask.–A First Nations’ elder says he was humiliated when an employee searched him at a Canadian Tire store in Saskatchewan earlier this week.
“They really, really embarrassed us,” Gordon Albert, 78, of the Sweetgrass First Nation said yesterday.
“They thought that since we’re native, we’d steal something.”
Albert was in North Battleford shopping for a gift with his wife, Marlene, and son, Deryk, on Monday but they didn’t find what they were looking for.
The anti-theft sensor by the door beeped as they left and an employee stopped them and asked him to take off his coat, his wife said.
“That lady took his cigarettes out, took his phone out. She was just going through his pockets,” she recalled.
“He said, ‘What else do you want me to take off? My clothes?'”
The employee never explicitly accused her husband of stealing but the encounter was upsetting, the wife said.
The couple goes to Canadian Tire often to shop for gardening supplies or things for their vehicle, and have never had an experience like this.
Gordon Albert said the suggestion he would steal makes no sense.
“I make enough money that I can buy whatever I want,” he remarked.
“I don’t have to go that route.”
Canadian Tire said in a statement that staff asked to inspect Albert’s belongings, as they normally would when an alarm goes off.
They determined the sensor was triggered by something they had bought elsewhere.
The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan, said the retail industry needs a wake-up call.
“The family is still considering their options but at the very least, I am recommending that they file a human rights complaint,” said Chief Bobby Cameron.
Gordon Albert said he’s not keen on doing that.
“I’m kind of forgetting about it,” he noted. “Why cry over spilled milk?”
