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A complaint related to a supervisor’s comment about spanking a female employee will be examined closer by a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

Tribunal member Pamela Murray has rejected an application to dismiss the complaint filed Kerrilyn Wilson, a former labourer with a pipeline builder.

As Murray recounted in her reasons for decision, the incident happened in July 2017 in front of Wilson’s co-workers with Surerus Pipeline Inc.

The male supervisor asked Wilson if she had her paperwork with her, and she said, “Yes, it is in my truck.”

The supervisor responded: “Good thing you have it or I would have had to spank you.”

Wilson replied, “Pardon?” and the supervisor repeated the spanking comment.

“She also says minutes later, with only two co‐workers present, he again repeated it and one of the two co‐workers at this final exchange laughed,” according to Murray.

Surerus does not dispute the incident.

After this happened, Wilson texted with the supervisor, objecting to what he had said.

Wilson described the comments as “uncalled for”, and that it made her feel “awkward and uncomfortable in front of the whole crew”.

Wilson later went on a stress leave. She was unable to return to work, and was later laid off. She filed a complaint of discrimination on the basis of sex and mental disability in employment.

Surerus applied to have the complaint dismissed, claiming it has acted to resolve the issue.

However, Murray wrote in her reasons that the company “may not have actually disciplined the Supervisor with a written warning”.

In addition, Surerus has acknowledged that the supervisor, “in the end, did not actually receive ‘sensitivity training’.

“At the time of the application, Surerus had not yet implemented an ‘in‐house workplace harassment and sensitivity program’, although from the materials before me, it appears to have been aware for some time of an issue with employees using inappropriate language in the workplace,” according to Murray.

Murray also cited also cited an excerpt from a meeting between the supervisor and the company’s human resources official, in which it was discussed that it would “not be good” for Wilson to return to the supervisor’s crew.

The supervisor said in part: “I don’t need to know what’s going to happen with [Ms. Wilson], that’s none of my business, but with everything that’s gone on with my crew for the last three or four days because of this, if she does come back to work, I don’t think – there’s no way I can put her behind the wheel to do what she was doing and too many complaints over the last three or four days, it wouldn’t be a good environment for her and it wouldn’t be a good environment for the rest of my crew either and that’s who I have to look after is my crew.”

The human resources person replied: “I understand that. Well, and I don’t, in my opinion as well, I think after something like this has ensured it’s very difficult to rebuild a relationship, too.”