TORONTO -- A Winnipeg man is furious with Air Canada after the airline lost his three-year-old cat during a layover in Toronto.

Riley McCann has been living in Montreal for the past five years but earlier this month decided to move back to his hometown of Winnipeg to be with his mother who is dealing with health issues. 

He originally booked a direct flight from Montreal to Winnipeg but ended up having his route switched by Air Canada, which included a layover in Toronto.

McCann travelled with one of his cats, Vida, in the cabin of the plane and paid $105 to have his other cat, Dewy, placed in the cargo area of the aircraft. 

Everything seemed to be going well until about one hour into his layover in Toronto when he got a call from an Air Canada employee saying they needed to "relay some information."

"They told me that my cat Dewy had escaped his carrier and is now missing in their baggage room," McCann told CTV News Toronto on Tuesday. "She told me that the employee that walked the crate off the plane set it down for a moment and when they turned around it was open and he was gone."

"They had no idea where he is."

McCann said he asked the employee if he could come search the baggage room himself but was told that wasn't allowed due to security reasons. 

"I begged and begged to be able to do that, so that I could call out for him but I was told that was not going to happen."

McCann said Air Canada offered to put him on a later flight to Winnipeg while staff searched for Dewy but he declined because he didn’t feel it was fair for his other cat to remain in its cage for an extended period of time.