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A Vancouver charter yacht business has denied discriminating against a Black woman who applied for a job because of her race, colour, and ancestry.

Honu Boat Charters and its operations manager Guy Marchand asked a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal to dismiss a complaint filed against them by Jessica Perry without a trial.

However, tribunal member Norman Trerise rejected the company’s application, and ordered a hearing of the complaint.

In his reasons for decision denying the application to dismiss the complaint without a hearing, tribunal member Norman Trerise related that Perry claimed that Marchand “asked her a lot of questions about where she was from at the job interview”.

According to Trerise, Perry describes herself as a black, African American woman.

Marchand allegedly told Perry, “[t]he thing is, I don’t want to waste your time talking about the position. I work with a lot of Japanese and Chinese and they are more traditional”.

“So I wouldn’t be able to hire a coloured person. It’s not me but they are more traditional,” Marchand allegedly said, referring to his Asian clients.

If true, Marchand appeared to be implying that Asians, or at least his Japanese and Chinese clients, don’t like black people.

According to Trerise, Perry told Marchand that his comment was “not true and was not how things were now”.

“She said that Mr. Marchand simply repeated himself…,” Trerise recalled from the submissions to the tribunal.

According to the tribunal member, Marchand denies making the alleged comments.

“He says he did not hire Ms. Perry because she did not have training regarding emergency procedures on a vessel, he needed to be able to check her tenancy record, she had made no effort to familiarize herself with Honu’s business through its website because she said she did not have the time to do so, and that she described herself as a ‘personal spiritual trainer’,” Trerise wrote.

Honu Boat Charters was hiring for a part-time crew member when Perry applied for the position.

The company provides pleasure cruises around Vancouver, the Indian Arm, and Sunshine Coast.

Marchand told the tribunal that he has a witness.

“However, he does not identify this witness, describe their evidence or provide any statement from them,” Trerise wrote.

According to Trerise, there was “clearly conflicting evidence on the issue of what Mr. Marchand actually said during Ms. Perry’s job interview”, which is a “foundational issue given the essence of the Complaint”.

“In the circumstances, the only way of sorting out between the parties which version of events at the interview is to be believed, is to hear the evidence of the witnesses subjected to full cross‐examination,” Trerise wrote. “This matter must proceed to a hearing.”