Loblaw Companies which is the parent company of Shoppers Drug Mart, likes to boast that it has a forward-thinking race relations policy.  However, this doesn’t seem to be the experience of many customers who venture to their Shoppers Drug Mart franchise in Rideau Centre.

One such experience took place when someone decided to visit the Shoppers Drug Mart store in order to buy milk.  Unfortunately for Loblaws, this was no “ordinary shopper” but, instead, a shopper who has a background teaching human rights law and racial profiling.

“I have experienced racial profiling in this store before, but the behaviour hat I experienced could simply not be ignored,” Ray stipulated.

“As soon as I walked in the store, I noticed a security guard who had been firmly planted in a fixed position until he saw me."  Ray added,"As soon as he saw me, he began to briskly walk directly toward me and then stood less than one foot from my back staring at me as I proceeded to try to decide whether I wanted to buy milk or bottled water,” Ray added.

Ray then decided to pick up some other items.  This resulted in the security officer running around the store in hot pursuit of Ray.  When he landed beside a Shoppers Market Drug store, the security guard stood right beside the employee, as if the security guard expected Ray to perpetrate a theft right beside that employee.

When Ray left to go the front of the store, once more that guard followed mn hot pursuit.  Ray then asked the guard politely if he was following him.  The guard emphatically admitted “yes”.  Ray then asked for the manager.  They made no apology about the incident and shrugged it off as just doing “their job,” as if following black people assumed to be shoplifters was “their job”.

Ray took the matter up with both Shoppers Drug management and Loblaws head office which did nothing to redress on going experiences humiliation at that store.

A complaint has been sent to the Ontario Human Tribunal.