By Canadian Press

Father of Indigenous hockey player rejects report on racist taunts

Feb 7, 2020 | 1:05 PM

WAYCOBAH, N.S. — An investigation into allegations that an Indigenous hockey player faced racist taunts during a recent game in Cape Breton has determined the verbal abuse was not based on race.

However, the player’s father has rejected the report’s findings, saying Hockey Nova Scotia shouldn’t be telling his teenaged son how he should feel about what really happened on the ice.

Phillip Prosper says his 16-year-old son Logan told him he was playing in a game in Cheticamp, N.S., last December when he heard a member the rival team say, “All natives look like turds.”

Prosper, whose family is from the Waycobah First Nation, says the investigation by a former police officer determined one player had said those words, but the investigator determined the “remark was not racial.”

As well, the report dismissed online allegations that similar comments were made by parents in the stands.

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Prosper says he’s considering filing a complaint with Hockey Canada or the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission.

Amy Walsh, Hockey Nova Scotia’s executive director, said she couldn’t comment on the report because it involves a minor.

However, she noted the volunteer organization has assembled an anti-discrimination task force that includes a human rights lawyer and representatives from the Indigenous, African Nova Scotian and LGBTQ communities.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 7, 2020.

The Canadian Press