Trudeau calls on institutions to learn from Air Canada mishandling of First Nations headdress

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he hopes lessons will be learned after the ceremonial headdress of the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations was mishandled on an Air Canada flight this week.

Mr. Trudeau’s comments were made a day after Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak shared the incident on her Facebook account after a Wednesday Air Canada Jazz flight from Montreal to Fredericton.

She said in a media post Thursday that the headdress and its case were taken away and put in a plastic bag.

“Air Canada needs a protocol for First Peoples so that we are not harassed for our sacred items,” she wrote, adding that headdresses do not belong in airline garbage bags.

She said Friday that the case was removed from the cabin but that after pleading with staff, she was eventually able to hold her headdress throughout the trip.

Ms. Woodhouse Nepinak also said Friday that when she first complained about the incident to Air Canada, she received an offer of a 15-per-cent discount on her next flight.

“It must have been a generic response,” she said, adding that the experience was humiliating and unbelievable.

Ms. Woodhouse Nepinak’s Facebook post was met with dismay from other First Nations leaders and politicians who called the situation unacceptable and called on the airline to ensure it has appropriate protocols in place.

“It is an unfortunate situation that I hope is going to lead to a bit of learning, not just by Air Canada, but a lot of other institutions,” Mr. Trudeau said Friday while speaking to reporters during an unrelated event in Bromont, Que. Mr. Trudeau said the incident was a mistake that Air Canada is looking into.

On Thursday, the airline issued a statement calling the situation regrettable. Air Canada also said it had reached out to the National Chief directly to better understand and apologize for her experience.

Air Canada said it was following up on the matter internally and that it understood the importance of accommodating “customers with items and symbols of sacred cultural significance.” It said that in the past, chiefs have been able to travel while transporting their headdresses in the cabin.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he met with Ms. Woodhouse Nepinak “by chance” in the Montreal airport after the incident and she shared her feelings about it.

“She felt that the ceremonial, culturally important headdress was disrespected and she herself felt disrespected,” he said at an event in Toronto.

“In a country like Canada, there are far too many examples where Indigenous people are disrespected in this manner,” he said.

Mr. Singh added, “I support her call for a national policy to ensure that any airline and any form of travel, that this type of incident never happens again.”

At the news conference with the party’s leader, NDP MP Leah Gazan reiterated Mr. Singh’s support for Ms. Woodhouse Nepinak. Ms. Gazan, who is a member of Wood Mountain Lakota Nation in Saskatchewan, said Air Canada should ensure employees are equipped to work with a diverse public.

“It’s their responsibility to make sure that anybody working for the airline is culturally competent and knows proper cultural protocols,” she said.

“Canada is rich with diversity and the airline needs to reflect that and respect that through action.”

With a report from The Canadian Press