Sobeys likely to withdraw appeal of discrimination decision, facing boycott
HALIFAX — One of Canada’s largest grocery store chains says it intends to withdraw an appeal of a human rights decision that found a Sobeys employee discriminated against a black customer — but a group of 19 churches in Nova Scotia says the move doesn’t go far enough.
“They want to cut a cheque, they want to withdraw the appeal and say ‘bye bye’ and have no admittance of their wrongdoing,” said Rev. Lennett Anderson of the African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia.
A Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission independent board of inquiry determined last year that staff at a store in Tantallon, N.S., discriminated against Andrella David in May 2009 after falsely accusing her of being a repeat shoplifter.
Sobeys appealed that decision, sparking protests from the black community and even prompting Nova Scotia’s first black lieutenant-governor Mayann Francis to speak out — saying she has been the victim of racial profiling while shopping.