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WINNIPEG — Canada’s annual gathering of top Arctic scientists has been roiled by an open letter from researchers protesting what they call a sexist joke at the conference’s gala banquet.

The joke was made Wednesday during a tribute to Martin Fortier, retiring head of ArcticNet, which co-ordinates northern research in Canada.

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“Basically, it was a roast of his contributions to the network,” said David Barber, a Canada Research Chair in Arctic system science at the University of Manitoba, speaking on behalf of the ArcticNet board. “The idea was to poke fun at some misspeaks that Martin has made over the years.”

Fortier is a francophone.

“(The speaker) made a statement about a misspeak that Martin had made several years ago at one of the Arctic science meetings we were holding,” said Barber.

“He was speaking at the end of the banquet and making a few comments about the meal and he said he went and sampled some of the vegetarian women to make sure they were happy with the food they had received.”

Fortier had meant “surveyed” and not “sampled.”

Barber said the speaker stated the bare bones of the word mix-up without explaining that it was another in a series of Fortier’s innocent linguistic mistakes.