A spokesperson for a Bollywood awards ceremony to be held next month in Vancouver is apologizing after organizers were accused of racism, saying they did not want "brown" drivers and security guards working at the three-day event.
Organizers for the Times of India Film Awards apparently told local businesses they did not want staff of South Asian descent working at the highly-anticipated gala event, fearing they would be too "star-struck" by the Bollywood celebrities expected to attend, sources told CTV British Columbia.
But event spokesperson Laura Ballance said the request was not meant to be a racist statement.
"I believe it was an unfortunate word choice on behalf of one of the staffers that was here in Canada," she said.
Ballance said with a number of big name celebrities, including former Miss World and Miss India Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, slated to attend the award show, organizers simply want the event to be staffed with the “most professional” people.
She pointed to an example at another awards show where a star-struck employee had misbehaved and mishandled a Bollywood celebrity.
"It was in another country where a driver had one of these celebrities in the car, took him to his home, and asked him to do autographs and pictures with his family before he delivered him to the event," Ballance said.
She adds that many of the workers already hired for the gala are of South-Asian descent.
The poor choice of words has sparked some anger in Vancouver’s business community.
Burnaby-Edmonds Member of Legislative Assembly Raj Chouhan said he was "appalled" at the statement.
"They should be treating people with respect. There should be no discrimination whatsoever," he said. “If they made any statement like that, I want them to retract it, you know, properly, and also they should also be told that they will not do anything like this in the future.”
The event is also creating some outrage in B.C.’s film industry.
Shortly after Premier Christy Clark announced in January the government would be spending $11-million to bring the awards to Vancouver, many said it was a slap in the face to the province’s ailing film industry.
Clark explained the awards ceremony will be watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world and getting the chance to host the event will put Vancouver on centre stage.
Others have also accused the funding decision as a quick-win strategy to woo Indo-Canadian voters in the upcoming provincial election.
The three-day gala event will bring some of Bollywood's biggest stars to Vancouver and will wrap up with the awards ceremony on April 6.
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Nafeesa Karim
