Indigenous groups want Vancouver Hyatt apology after ‘abhorrent’ incident

Two Indigenous organizations want an apology from Vancouver’s Hyatt Regency hotel after they say a staff member didn’t allow an Indigenous guest to use the bathroom. Angela Bower has the story.

By Charlie Carey and Hana Mae Nassar

Posted March 10, 2023 12:59 pm.

Last Updated March 10, 2023 7:38 pm.

Indigenous organizations in B.C. are seeking an apology from the Vancouver Hyatt Regency Hotel after they say a staff member didn’t allow a cultural advisor to use the bathroom during a meeting there.

The BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres says during a membership meeting of 25 friendship centres from across the province, the advisor needed to use a washroom urgently. It says he was then “refused access,” despite repeated pleas.

“After a fourth and urgent request to enter the restroom, the Hyatt Regency again barred access until the Cultural Advisor could no longer control their need to use the toilet, resulting in a public and humiliating incident,” the BCAAFC said in a statement Friday.

The organization adds Hyatt staff “mocked them and smirked” after they noticed his wet clothing. It notes the advisor was eventually let into the restroom.

“The BCAAFC Cultural Advisor was extremely humiliated and traumatized,” the association added.

The organization is now calling on the Hyatt Regency to uphold the safety of Indigenous peoples and to provide mandatory anti-racism training to all staff. It is also calling on the hotel to apologize publicly, to demonstrate accountability.

Robert Phillips, the political executive member with the First Nations Summit and First Nations Leadership Council, says the action of one employee can show a culture that “we’re unaware of at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver.”

“We know that anti-Indigenous racism is alive and well. And to do such a thing, to take away such a basic human right from our cultural [advisor] is wrong … The hotel industries make millions and millions of dollars every year from First Nations not only here in Vancouver, but throughout British Columbia, Canada and internationally,” Phillips said in a media availability Friday.

The association says it has spoken to management at the hotel but claim the Hyatt didn’t recognize this as a racist incident, with the cultural advisor receiving a “brief apology that interpreted the incident as a ‘misunderstanding,’ that the staff person was ‘only doing his job,’ and offered a meagre breakfast voucher as compensation,” the BCAAFC said.

Following the incident, the BCAAFC says it has pulled its future events from the hotel and is actively looking for other locations to hold its planned meetings.

“The behaviour of the Hyatt Regency employee and response from management was abhorrent, unreasonable, and displayed a gross lack of respect for the dignity and well-being of the respected Knowledge Keeper,” it said.

“It must be made clear that the discriminatory refusal of a person’s basic needs was the result of systemic anti-Indigenous racism and is nothing short of a human rights violation. Corporations that profit from our community must be made aware that mistreatment and anti-Indigenous racism will be called out and investigated with immediacy.”

Hyatt conducts ‘thorough internal investigation’

In a statement to CityNews, Hyatt Regency Vancouver General Manager Patrick Gosselin says the hotel’s team “has been in an open dialogue” with the association about what happened on Feb. 24.

“We conducted a thorough internal investigation and concluded that our colleague was following our overnight protocol to close restrooms in unused areas of the hotel and redirect this person to an open restroom but, upon learning this person was a guest of the hotel, allowed him to use the restroom,” the statement reads.

It says just after 11 p.m. the night in question, a supervisor was “closing and locking the second-floor restrooms as part of his routine nightly duties and protocols because the floor was no longer in use and the area was vacant.”

“A member of the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres tried to access the men’s restroom at the same time our colleague was exiting the restroom to lock it, after verifying no one was inside. Our colleague followed our protocol and asked him to use the restrooms on the lobby level. Within approximately 20 seconds of first encountering the man, and as soon as our colleague learned that he was a guest who urgently needed to use the restroom, our colleague gave him immediate access to the restroom,” Gosselin’s statement continues.

It does not address claims made by the association that the advisor was mocked.

Meanwhile, the Hyatt says it has taken reconciliation “very seriously with a focus on educating our colleagues.”

“Hyatt Regency Vancouver has a longstanding commitment to celebrating and honoring diversity, equity and inclusivity of our guests, colleagues, customers, vendors and communities we serve. We have been working with Indigenous groups for many years and are proud to have built a strong relationship,” Gosselin’s statement adds.

–With files from Cole Schisler