Dumas ‘should be forced to resign’

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This article was published 14/07/2019 (1945 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The woman who accuses Manitoba’s top Indigenous leader of sending her inappropriate text messages says he must apologize to her in person and be removed from office.

“The point is, he’s an older man, twice my age, in a position of leadership, and he has a role to play on and off the job,” Bethany Maytwayashing, 22, told the Free Press.

She gave her first interview since Friday, when Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Arlen Dumas said he was taking a leave of absence.

Last week, Maytwayashing’s boyfriend, Matthew Shorting, published a series of Facebook texts from an account that has a pseudonym, which were followed by text messages from Dumas’s cellphone number.

On July 9, Dumas insisted he hadn’t written those messages. He said someone had impersonated his phone number for an unspecified political reason.

On Friday, he said he was sorry for an “open and informal communication style” that he feared made women uncomfortable after Maytwayashing provided texts that Dumas had sent to her a year earlier.

Maytwayashing said Dumas’s statement was not an apology; she says it blames people for their perception of events instead of Dumas’s actions.

“I think the grand chief should be forced to resign because he’s made many mistakes,” she said. “All he had to do was apologize and admit that he was wrong.”

Maytwayashing also wants an in-person apology. “If he really felt sincere about making me uncomfortable, then he would say it to my face.”

The assembly’s women’s council is investigating the incident. Maytwayashing said she wants an impartial, forensic probe into whether the phone number was impersonated, including a third-party or police examination of the metadata on Dumas’s phone, to see whether it was hacked.

She disputes Dumas’s claim on Friday that she had initiated contact with him over social media. That doesn’t align with the messages she saved from a year ago, many of which were sent after hours.

Dumas has not given any interviews since the allegations came to light. The assembly noted the death of Dumas’s son in March has affected his mental health. The grand chief, who is in his mid-40s, is viewed by many Indigenous leaders across Canada as a rising star. He may one day seek a national role.

Some First Nations chiefs in Manitoba have expressed support for Dumas and questioned Maytwayashing’s motives. Others have come forward with claims of other male chiefs allegedly acting inappropriately.

“It’s the #MeToo movement,” Maytwayashing said.

“I knew this was going on for a while, and I had proof and I wanted to bring it to the light. Because this should not be normalized behaviour from male leaders today.”

Shorting said he was fired last Friday from his job at Onashowewin Justice Circle. He believes it is due to him posting about the grand chief, as the group has representatives from the assembly on its board.

“You have people that are getting their needs met by (the assembly) and they’re trying to silence her as a woman,” he said. “The whole point of this is for women to have a voice, and to have accountability.”

The assembly is tied to virtually all First Nations groups in the province and has negotiated with federal cabinet ministers.

Maytwayashing spent time in nature to get away from a torrent of online criticism. Some of the most ferocious blowback has come from fellow Indigenous women, something that didn’t surprise her.

“A lot of women feel like they have to support the men because in this generation they stand over us; it’s the men that are leading us,” said Maytwayashing.

At the end of this month, Manitoba chiefs will attend a general meeting at Brokenhead First Nation. Maytwayashing said she’d like to see the chiefs purge Dumas, two years into his three-year mandate.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca