B.C. woman awarded $15K by human rights tribunal in workplace discrimination case

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has awarded $15,000 to a woman who worked at a software company in Penticton, B.C., as a result of her complaint about discrimination based on her gender and marital status. 

According to the decision posted this week, former Windward Software employee Carole Loiselle was awarded the sum for injury to her dignity, feelings, and self‐respect caused by various offences over her eight years of employment that included her bosses or colleagues slapping her hands, putting her in a headlock and hitting her buttocks with keys. 

Tribunal member Grace Chen said although not all the contact was inherently sexual in nature "Ms. Loiselle experienced five unwanted physical contacts, when the proper amount of physical contact of this nature in the workplace is none."

Kate Feeney, director of litigation at gender-based discrimination defenders West Coast LEAF, says the case highlights how difficult it can be for women to prove the more subtle aspects of ongoing gender disparity. 

"Realistically, there are limits to what our legal system can do," Feeney said. "This case also speaks to the cultural shift that all of us need to collectively work toward in our workplaces to make them more inclusive."

'Profound impact' on complainant

Lawyer Ryu Okayama, who represented Loiselle at the tribunal, says his client is pleased that some of her claims were substantiated by the tribunal but disappointed with many of the findings.

Okayama says Loiselle filed the complaint "to prevent other women from experiencing discrimination based on sex and/or marital status like she did."

"Ms. Loiselle's negative experiences at Windward Software Inc. did profoundly impact her life and she still has significant difficulty and emotions related to the same," he wrote in an email. 

The lawyer representing Windward Software says the company has applied to have the decision reconsidered. 

Company 'failed to dispel a discriminatory workplace'

According to the decision, Loiselle worked for the company as an account manager from 2009 to 2017 and was around 50 and unmarried during that time. 

The company has since been sold to a U.S.-based owner, but some leaders and staff highlighted in the complaint remain employed there.  

Loiselle's allegations range from the aforementioned physical contact to being given the middle finger by a colleague and her ideas being discredited in meetings. 

She claimed the company "failed to dispel a discriminatory workplace by not taking the incidents that happened to her seriously," the decision says.

The company denied the allegations. The decision says, in most cases, the colleagues or bosses involved said the physical contact was meant in jest or as a joke.

'Love languages' questionnaire

Loiselle's complaint also included her supervisor asking her to fill out a questionnaire about her "love languages," based on the bestselling relationship advice book by Gary Chapman. 

The decision says the supervisor who had sent it to Loiselle had been advised to do so at an international training seminar aimed at improving professional relationships with employees. 

Based on the bestselling book, the "languages" include "words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch." Loiselle's supervisor made it clear in his email to her that the latter would be limited to high-fives and fist bumps. 

Although Chen recognized the supervisor's intent had not been romantic, she also made it clear in her decision that the questionnaire was unsuitable in this setting.

"The recipient employee's perception of the questionnaire is important," the tribunal member said. "In my mind, there is no doubt that the questionnaire is inappropriate for work."

However, the tribunal dismissed other allegations in her complaint, including that she was given more work, less lucrative clients and denied a promotion compared to her male peers. Loiselle also claimed she was forced to quit her job because of what she had to endure. 

The company said it took all necessary steps to investigate Loiselle's complaints at the time, and the tribunal agreed. 

Chen said although the incidents clearly had an emotional impact on Loiselle, it wasn't clear they had been the only factor in her decision to leave her job. 

In addition to the $15,000 the company has been ordered to pay, it has also been ordered to refrain from committing the same or similar contraventions.