‘Go back to your country’: Bus passenger files complaint about dispute with driver

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This article was published 12/12/2017 (2318 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cathy Wong says she’s scared to take the bus to work at an airport-area hotel after the Winnipeg Transit driver refused to let her off at her stop and told her to go back to her country.

Wong, 61, said she’s scared she’ll get same driver – a white, middle-aged man — who told her Saturday afternoon that he was punishing her for getting on the bus at Portage Place with a transfer that expired 10 minutes earlier. At her stop, she stood at the front of the bus waiting to exit but the driver wouldn’t open the front door for her and continued driving well past her stop.

“‘I said ‘why don’t you open the door?’ He said ‘It’s not safe and you don’t pay the fee’.” Wong said a co-worker at the hotel where she works as a server for catered events was also on the bus and exited at the rear door. “I say ‘then why did you open the back door?’ The driver said ‘You refused to pay’. I tried to pay again but he didn’t the door. He drove the bus.”

He drove for another two minutes before stopping to let her off, she said.

“I looked at him and he said ‘Go back to your country,’,” said Wong, who immigrated to Canada from China many years ago.

Wong, who takes two buses from her home near the University of Manitoba to her job at a hotel close to the airport, said bus 162 she took to Portage Place was running late and the driver stopped for coffee along the way. Her transfer expired at 3:27 p.m. while she waited in the bus shelter for her connecting bus to her job. It was 3:37 p.m. when she boarded the 720 bus and the driver told her the transfer had expired and she had to pay.

“I tried to explain to the driver and say ‘I don’t want to pay again’… I always pay,” said Wong, who speaks English with a pronounced Chinese accent. She boarded the bus and the driver didn’t stop her.

Wong said if the driver didn’t believe her explanation of why her transfer expired and felt strongly that she needed to pay, he should have refused to let her on the bus. Instead, he waited until it was her stop and refused to let her off the bus, and that troubles the woman who relies on Winnipeg Transit to get to work. The xenophobic “Go back to your country” remark was hurtful and rude but it was the driver’s refusal to let her off the bus that worries her, she said.

“I’m scared to get on the bus if it’s the same driver,” she said. “I don’t want him to play a game.” She said she was the last passenger on the bus when the incident occurred Saturday.

“I feel I’m not safe.”

Wong said she reported it to 311 and hopes Winnipeg Transit investigates.

When asked to respond to Wong’s complaint, Winnipeg Transit said in an email that it is investigating the matter.

“The City of Winnipeg is committed to fostering an environment of inclusion and diversity at our facilities and in the services we offer, including Winnipeg Transit… Providing courteous customer service to our customers is a top priority for Winnipeg Transit. As part of their initial training, bus operators receive in-depth customer service training, with further follow up each year.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca