Hi chemgal,

I think VIA handled themselves appropriately.

Arden, however; appears to be reacting badly.

I can't imagine she is developing fans in Oshawa by describing their city as "the middle of nowhere."

Grace and peace to you.

John

I am not sure - if this dog was just a pet than she should have known better.  Hmm, I have never visisted Oshawa, but I thought it was somewhere.....maybe she was confused....maybe thats why she brought the dog on with her.....just sayin......

I thought the same thing about the 'middle of nowhere'.  I was expecting it to be a town I had never heard of or something even smaller until I read further.  I guess when you're unexpectedly dropped off and it isn't one of the largest 5 cities in Canada it could feel that way.

VIA enforced their policy in a way that was in accordance with their policy. End of story. Just because she's a celeb who has fans to tweet to about it doesn't invalidate the policy.

And Oshawa, while hardly the centre of the universe, is not the middle of nowhere either. It's part of that wonderful suburban sprawl that surrounds Toronto like Saturn's rings and also an industrial town (GM plant) so there's plenty going on around there.

Mendalla

Mendalla, so instead of teh middle of nowher, maybe it is the middle of nowhere one would want to be????

As a former resident of the city in question, my wife spending much of her life there in the place called "The Shwa" ...

Uh, it is not "the middle of nowhere", but that may have been politer than many things it is called by even its residents.

She claims people saw the dog and did not say anything... and that she did not know the rules. The rules are that not only are they not allowed on passenger cars but there is a fee for them in baggage and they have to be in a cage. They will sell you one if you do not have one. Whether she was smuggling the dog or nobody told her... If they did not offer to move the dog to the baggage area and just booted her, it is IMO bad customer service. If they asked and she refused, then it was her choice. 

I think it's a sound policy. I once flew from Rio de Janiero to Washington next to a young woman with a puppy in a box. She'd paid extra for the privilege. And every hour or less, she's take "Paco" out of the box for drinkies and fresh air. I arrived in Washington covered with damp patches and stinking of dog pee because Paco just adored me and would like my face whenever he got half a chance… and the bedding inb his box was getting moister and mositer. The economy section of an international flight is not a good place to tell someone who's been given no choice but to sit beside you that you don't find her dog at all lovable and you'll kill it if it gets near your face again.

And — if you have a good policy, everybody should be subject to it as a condition of accepting the service you provide. (Who IS Jann Arden? I've never heard of her.) It's just like smoling in a restaurant.

Oshawa? The middle of nowhere? I'm open on that one.

I have no issue with their policy.  It sounds like there was a breakdown of communication between either Jann and her agent (that the dog would be on the train) or the agent simply forgot to check about the policy completely.

I'm confused as to why she was allowed on the train with the dog in the first place.  She didn't try to hide it as she boarded and says she went by 5 employees, she thought it was ok.  I'm not sure if VIA offered a solution once the trip started other than kicking her and the dog off.  If they didn't do at least that, I don't think kicking her off was the proper response (and I'm all for banning pets on various transportation forms).

I don't think they really need to offer another solution, if they're not allowed they're not allowed. As SG said she was surprised the didn't offer to put the dog in baggage but as far as I am aware not all VIA trains run with a specific baggage car. Therefore, if her train didn't have one there was nothing else they could do. I think they handled it properly as far as I'm concerned.

Bethany, I just see a huge difference between not allowing someone on with a pet and kicking someone off part of the way to their destination.  I think most people would have a sense of feeling stranded at that point.

Jann's being a diva.

She bought Midi her own train!

You'd probably recognize her voice if you heard her Mike. She's a world renowned singer/ songwriter from Calgary. I think this was one of her first songs, from early-mid 90's.

I'd forgotten that I like her music, so her bad PR got her some good PR afterall...lol.

Thanks Kimmio, I forgot to answer Mike's question.  I'm a little surprised that you don't know who she is Mike.  She may be past her popularity peak, but when you start listing Canadian artists, I would have thought she would be up there.  She's had appearances on Corner Gas and the Rick Mercer Report.  Maybe it's becasue she stayed local for the and didn't base her career further east though.  She isn't someone most would consider to be a diva.

Yeah, i find her down to earth, self-effacing and definitely hasn't let her media-created 'celebrity' get to her head...she's the kinda person who'd share a cig and/or beer with you..

For me, it does not matter who it is or if they are famous....

The diva comment only happens because she is a celebrity.

Nobody would think I was a diva and if I carried the dog in, not smuggling it, and then got booted, I would be pissed. I would not also not really care about their policy at that point.

Most trains in Europe allow dogs.

It is like checking into a hotel, some are pet friendly and others are not.

If I walk in the lobby with the dog on a leash, in my arms or in a carrier and the hotel employee checks me in, then I am going to think I am good to go. Later,  they tell me to leave... I am going to be pissed.

She's done a nude photo shoot:

http://eatthis.inmusic.ca/2012/03/canadian-singer-and-one-woman-anti-via-rail-campaigner-well-and-her-little-dog-too-jann-arden-posed-nude-for-the-april-is.html

The video shows her true personality, I think.  She comes across as I've always seen her;  down to earth and real.  No pretending to be a sweetheart when she isn't one!

I think Jann got it just right.  I used to live near Oshawa ... or "the Shwa" as the locals like to call it.  I remember spending a whole week there one night.  Geographically it may not be the middle  of nowhere but perhaps Jann was not speaking geographically but rather culturally.  If that was, in fact, the case, then she was most certainly right.  

There is something we used to call the "south Oshawa look" and Jann was stranded right in the middle of "south Oshawa".  Maybe she saw one or more of the kids from the Shwa with the tight jeans, black Megadeath T-shirt, white hightops (fashionably unlaced) and short black motorcycle jacket with lots of zippers and buckles (all undone).  In Oshawa almost everyone 55 and under looks like Geddy Lee did in 1971.

Ralph Klein once said "Edmonton isn't the end of the world but you can see the end of the world from there.  The CN station in Oshawa is a lot like that,  being located in a vast industrial wasteland of monster warehouses and industrial plants trapped between the CN main line and Lake Ontario and sealed off from the rest of the city by the 401.  You've got to travel a couple of miles just to find a coffee shop and a couple of miles more to find residential housing of any sort.  If this train station isn't "the middle of nowhere" then, at least,  it gives new definition to the meaning of the word "somewhere" ... or "city" ... or "civiliation".  

Two minutes after the train pulls out and the passengers jump into their cars to drive (you can't walk because its way too far) home you might as well be in Timbuktu (or if it is winter and the wind is blowing in off the lake ... Tuktoyuktuk).  The only good thing about it is that whenever I've been there that old John Prine song "Rocky Mountain Time" starts to run through my head ...

I do believe this situation could have been handled in a much nicer way. Kicking people off in unknown territory helps no one. Hopefully the employees will be given better training and Via will offer alternatives should this ever happen again Jan judging from past history will tell it like it is and move on Perhaps her agency should take some responsibility for this unfortunate incident. :-)

I'm really struggling to understand how VIA was in the wrong.

Yes, perhaps someone should have stopped her before she got on the train but she should have checked the pet policy before she even bought the tickets. If she knew she was traveling with her pet I am still seeing her as initially in the wrong. I do not and would not assume that my dog is allowed anywhere public since she is not a service dog.

As to accomodating her, if a baggage car was not available I feel the only other option would be to ask her to leave the train. Letting her stay on until her destination defeates the purpose of the policy, anyone could walk on with a pet and say "oops I didn't know". Perhaps they could have offered her another form of transport but as I said it was not VIA's fault she didn't check the policy beforehand.

Who cares really. Not to say that it wasn't frustrating, but this is a fairly typical type of customer service dispute that is not earth shattering, and it's none of my business. Either she broke a rule and was ticked off about the rule, maybe she was having a bad day and feeling extra agrumentative about the rule...or maybe VIA was in the wrong. Maybe VIA's policies are inadequate. So she tweeted about her bad day. But who cares. She's human. Could happen to anyone. She just got in the papers for it because she's famous.

I agree Kimmio, I just thought it would make for a fun discussion, especially after my more serious Sandoz one.  This one also appears to be more popular!

Bathany, when you state it that she should have checked into the rules, I can't disagree.  I still feel that VIA was harsh, but can understand your opinion that they were fair.

I too am wondering at the publicity this (non)story has generated.  If it had been a woman with a crying baby bothering the other passengers and they had kicked her off, and she had no money for either a taxi or a hotel room, that might have been another story.

Last year a woman with a crying child (on her way to a doctor's appointment) was refused permission to get on a city bus after waiting at the bus stop, in front of her low-income apartment building, in the freezing rain.   That's something the public has a right to know about and get up-in-arms about. 

Wealthy woman put off the train at a regular stop in a city because she didn't comply with the rules - not exactly frontpage stuff, even on a slow day.

I agree seeler, the woman not allowed on the bus should outrage us. Yet, nobody tells us. The media focuses on celebrity and sensationalism.

I always check for pet policy if possible. If we are dirving with no advanced intent to stay in a hotel and make that decision, then we ask. I, personally, would walk in and ask I would not put the dog on a leash and walk in the lobby with her. That is me.

There were people using VIA Rail (because of the AirCanada strike threat) who were not familiar or used to VIA service or policy.

Arden should have asked and someone should have said "hey, lady, is that ticket for you? You can't take that dog with you, you know that right?" I bet someone said "OMG, aren't you Jann Arden?"

I can tell you having lived a few blocks from the VIA RAIL station in Ohawa (could have spit on GM plant on Park) that this is not a place you want dropped with no awaiting car to dash to.

Jann herself made some comment about media now using twitter as an official source after the story went public.  I don't think she was expecting the publicity from it.  I don't think the publicity about the pet policy is a bad thing though.  There are people who expect their fur baby should be welcomed everywhere and anywhere.

Seeler, there was a story slightly similar I heard about.  A plane turned around when a toddler had a tantrum on a flight and it took a while for her parents to get her seatbelt buckled.  The pilot claimed it was a safety issue.  What was the reason the bus driver gave?  I would hope he was disciplined and educated about the situation.

I mentioned this to my wife last night, people could be talking about the soldier who slaughtered women and children in Afghanistan, the Michael Rafferty trial (Tori Stafford), the Swiss bus crash that killed 22 children and 6 adults, the ICC conviction of a Congo warlord ...

But instead we talk about Jann Arden's dog, Courtney and Ben, a Kardashian being smart or blond or married or whatever, a 90210 star getting a divorce...

And all the while we complain the news does not offer "real news'.

Chemgal, the news business has changed. You cannot wait for it to get in a newspaper, on the evening news or come across the newswire. It is instantly on Twitter, facebook, YouTube.... It is the changing reality that they are sources.

I was surprised VIA didn't allow dogs , Air Canada does and charges for a dog.  While Mike had a bad experience with a dog on a flight I have never seen one taken out.  I have a friend who flies alot with her dog and she has a home here and in the USA and goes back and forth biweekly.

While Oshawa isn't in the middle of no where, the train station sure is.  A Train station, at night , when you don't expect to be kicked off and then still have to get to Ottawa?

If that was an ordinary person, say a female student going home to Ottawa for the weekend, it could have been a much bigger issue.  Someone who now has no money, no way to get either home to Ottawa or home to toronto and didn't know about the dog policy?

In light of hotels taking dogs and planes taking dogs i think the train is out of touch.

Once she got on the train I think they missed their opportunity to enforce the policy.

Surprised she took the train actually.  It's cheaper to fly Porter from Toronto to Ottawa, nicer, quicker and better service.

Don't know the details, but could it perhaps be that the person who sold her the ticket/let her get on the train, did so because they recognized she was Jann Arden, and didn't think they should ruffle the feathers of a celebrity?

the "VIA doesn't allow dogs" is a similar thing to how crosswalks work -- the ruling itself isn't some supernatural agency that one cannot fight, but, rather, a social thing that at least 2 people must interact with

this stuff happens all the time, i'm sure you folks can think of others

a practical and personal example:  on the Vancouver to Vancouver Amtrak, once I had only like $1 in US change and I was wanting a coffee...but the coffees on Amtrak are $2.  So i walk up and ask if i can have just a little coffee and say how much i have.  i am given a free coffee.  now, that should be "against the rules", right?

or the new rule where it is illegal to take pictures of certain buildings now.  now, the main greyhound station in Vancouver (which is also the VIA Amtrak station) is a wonderful old building; some of you have seen it on TV (they'd use it as a regular shoot on X-files)...very high ceilings...well, one time when i was greyhounding it a security guard came up to an Asian woman and told her she couldn't be taking photos and deleted some photos from he camera...but since then, i have taken photos of the building (there used to be, before the renovation, little plants growing off the facade on the front) without being challenged.

laws aren't absolute and that's an absolute ;3

So, a woman tried to bring her dog on the train. She was told she couldn't. She likely argued and was kicked off. She was upset about it  and tweeted her friends. This is not news. But it may have an unanticipated positive affect on Jann Arden's career, nowthat her name has come up in household conversation again.

Kimmio, the problem I have is she was successfully able to bring her dog on the train and was later kicked off.  If she was simply told she couldn't and was let on the train with the dog I doubt this would be a story.

Beloved, I wondered the same thing.  She passed a few employees getting on, who choose not to say anything about the dog because they didn't want to be on the bad side of a celebrity.

From the sounds of it (nothing official), other people have been allowed to ride with their small dogs no problem.  It sounds like VIA needs to consistently enforce their own policies.

Oh yes, a little free publicity. Both for Jann Arden and the City of Oshawa!

Reminds me of all the free publicity received by The Bare Naked Ladies when they were prohibited from playing at Nathan Phillips Square (Toronto City Hall.) The Mayor of the day found their name offensive.