B’nai Brith Canada said Unicity Taxi has followed recommendations to address an incident where a driver made racist and anti-Semitic comments to a Jewish passenger.
The passenger, Winnipeg’s Ron East, went to B’nai Brith for advice on what to do after the incident, said to have occurred weeks ago.
“Facing antisemitism and racism at 5 a.m. in a taxi heading to the airport wasn’t my idea of a great start to the morning,” East said in the statement from B’nai Brith.
B’Nai Brith said East came up with a list of six actions for Unicity to take, and that East was pleased to share that the company “found its moral compass and did the right thing” by following through on the recommendations, which included an admission the incident occurred, taking responsibility, and suspending the driver until they completed racial sensitivity training.
The actions also included fining the driver, donating the fine money to the Main Street Project, and for Unicity to donate money to Holocaust education and the Bear Clan Patrol.
B’nai Brith said Unicity also sent a letter apologizing to East that read in part, “Be assured the words spoken by the operator of car #20 are not those of Unicity,” and “Unicity has followed up with the operator to make sure he apologized to you personally.”
B’nai Brith Canada offered gratitude to Unicity for taking steps to rectify what happened.
When asked about the incident Unicity said in a statement:
"A complaint was made by Mr. East against one individual operator, not the dispatch company, Unicity Taxi Ltd. (“Unicity”).
"Mr. East provided Unicity with a list of specific demands to address his complaint, which included letters of apology (with content Mr. East generated) from both the taxicab operator and Unicity, and donations to charities Mr. East directed.
"Mr. East at no time suggested similar experiences with taxicab owners and their employees or Unicity, the dispatch company.
"Unicity responded in what it considers an appropriate manner in all of the circumstances."
