A First Nations woman from Winnipeg says she’s pleased a Canadian clothing company has decided to pull fake First Nations headdresses from its shelves.
Last week, Kim Wheeler was shopping in Vancouver when she spotted the fake headdresses in an H&M Store.
She says she explained to the clerk the store shouldn’t be selling the ceremonial artifacts to people who viewed them only as accessories and told her she would be writing a letter to its head office.
H&M agreed to pull the merchandise and Wheeler says she’s glad she spoke up.
“There was a time when our people would never have approached a big business like that, that we wouldn’t have a voice, that we wouldn’t know how to go about rectifying the situation,” she says.
Wheeler adds she doubts any clothing company would sell a ceremonial head covering from any other major religion so she’s not why a business would think it’s okay to target First Nations artifacts.
She says education and social media have given First Nations people a much larger say in issues such as this.