AMC appoints second acting grand chief while Dumas under investigation

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This article was published 13/04/2022 (890 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A second chief is temporarily leading the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs until First Nations decide whether to keep Grand Chief Arlen Dumas, who faces allegations of sexual harassment, in the position.

On March 21, chiefs voted to suspend Dumas and installed Shamattawa Chief Eric Redhead as their acting grand chief, until a vote sometime in May on Dumas’s future with the organization.

On Thursday, Redhead stepped down, “due to time constraints and commitments,” an AMC news release said.

AMC’s cabinet has appointed Lake Manitoba Chief Cornell McLean as acting grand chief.

The assembly did not respond Thursday when asked whether it has set a date and time for the non-confidence vote.

Dumas, the most powerful Indigenous leader in Manitoba, is under investigation by the Winnipeg Police Service and also by external lawyers after a senior female co-worker accused him of sexual assault. None of the claims have been tested in court.

Dumas has faced calls to step down.

The woman made a complaint to the WPS sex crimes unit and, on Monday, formally notified the AMC executive council of chiefs that Dumas allegedly subjected her to “harassment, sexual harassment, and sexualized violence.”

In her emailed complaint, she urged the council to respond with “urgency” because she suspects other women at the AMC have experienced “the same thing.”

She claims Dumas harassed her virtually, by phone and in person, starting on her second day on the job.

“My personal experience of harassment and sexual misconduct has created an unsafe work environment where I have been subjected to gender-based violence,” the woman wrote.

The Free Press revealed the complaint, and isn’t naming the accuser because it involves an alleged sexual assault.

The AMC said it has tasked human-resources lawyers to investigate the issue, insisting they are “impartial, neutral and objective.”

The council, which normally comprises 10 Manitoba chiefs, ordered reviews of the AMC’s workplace harassment policies and constitution to identify potential amendments.

Two Winnipeg women previously accused Dumas of inappropriate behaviour.

In 2019, Bethany Maytwayashing said he had sent her inappropriate texts and Facebook messages after they met at a restaurant when she was 22 and he was in his mid-40s.

Dumas previously called the allegations “entirely false” and then apologized for an “open and informal communication style,” which he feared made women uncomfortable.

Renée Yetman, 36, said she met Dumas at a 2017 community event where she was singing in a female drum group.

Yetman said they had consensual sex after Dumas invited her to his home and said he was a single father, but days later he told her he was in a relationship. Dumas has never publicly responded to her claims.

The AMC is a political group that advocates for all but one of the 63 First Nations in Manitoba.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca