Two Whitehorse sisters alleged they experienced discrimination and harassment while employed by White Tornado Cleaning Services in 2015, the Yukon Human Rights Board of Adjudication heard on Friday.

Bobbi-Jean and Suzannah Simon allege that their former employer and owner of White Tornado, Rhonda Sallows, harassed them and called them derogatory names relating to their sex and their First Nations heritage.

The complainants allege that Sallows called them “bitches,” “squaws” and “FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)” at different times when they were attempting to collect their paycheques.

The Simon sisters are Gwich’in from Inuvik and have been living in Whitehorse for the last several years. They quit working for White Tornado in July of 2015 after fewer than two weeks of employment.

On Friday, their case went before the Yukon’s Human Rights Board of Adjudication in a public hearing held at the Canada Games Centre.

The board of adjudication is separate from the Human Rights Commission, and is referred cases that have already been investigated by the commission. It is up to the board to determine, on a balance of probabilities, whether the complaint is proven.

Both Simon sisters testified on Friday. Sallows, who chose not to participate in the proceedings, was absent from the hearing.

The board of adjudication heard that the sisters were hired to clean up F.H. Collins Secondary School in July 2015 after construction. Their intention was to work the entire month of July, but they only worked for fewer than two weeks’ worth of days before quitting.

The sisters said they walked off the job because they felt the company was unorganized and they didn’t like the way Sallows treated her employees.

According to testimony heard Friday, the sisters began working for Sallows as cleaners at F.H. Collins in early July for $15 an hour.

Suzannah, who is 37, said “everybody was OK to work with,” but when Sallows was on site, the atmosphere became tense. She said Sallows would yell and swear at the workers.

One time, said Suzannah, Sallows yelled at her and almost drove her to tears.

“It didn’t feel comfortable,” she said.

The board heard that neither sister confronted Sallows about how she was treating them and the other employees.

“You didn’t want to step on her toes,” said Bobbi-Jean.

“Even not saying anything would set her off.”

The women said Sallows paid them in cash, and asked them to meet her in front of the 202 Motor Inn on Jarvis Street to collect their wages.

Suzannah said the sisters heard the first discriminatory comments from Sallows while on their way to pick up their first paycheques.

Bobbi-Jean, now 29, received a phone call from Sallows, which Suzannah answered. According to Suzannah, the call was a “pocket dial,” that is, it sounded as though Sallows had called Bobbi-Jean by accident. Suzannah said she could hear Sallows speaking to someone else on the other end of the line.

Suzannah said she heard Sallows say she was waiting for “two stupid-ass bitches” to come pick up their paycheques. Bobbi-Jean, who was driving, did not hear the call and could not confirm that this is what was said.

The sisters expressed surprise over what Suzannah heard in the pocket dial.

“We didn’t know there was a problem,” said Bobbi-Jean. “(When we) signed for the cheques, everything was fine.”

Suzannah said Sallows comment was “mean” and made her feel “betrayed.”

“I’m doing a job for her and to be called that, how would it make you feel?” she said. Suzannah said on the work site, she heard Sallows call another worker the same pejorative term.

Before Suzannah and Bobbi-Jean picked up their last paycheques, they said, Sallows tried to change their rate of pay from $15 and hour to $10.80.

According to Bobbi-Jean, Sallows said she was changing their pay because the sisters walked off the job.

This prompted the women to go to the Employment Standards office, where they were advised to send a text to Sallows outlining the provision of the Employment Standards Act involving changes to pay rates.

That text, drafted by a staffer at the Employment Standards office and sent from Bobbi-Jean’s cell phone, sparked a series of texts from Sallows in which she allegedly called the women “squaws,” “pill-poppers” and “FAS cuds (sic)”

Bobbi-Jean said she was “shocked” by the texts put before the board of adjudication and that it was after receiving them that the sisters decided to take their complaint to the human rights commission.

“I’ve never been in this type of situation before, especially with an employer,” Bobbi-Jean told the board.

“I’ve never been talked to like that by anyone I know.”

The board was presented with printouts of the offensive texts, allegedly made shortly after the interaction.

Bobbi-Jean has since lost the phone containing the texts, the board heard.

Penelope Gawn, chair of the board, asked Bobbi-Jean if the texts provided were a complete record of the exchange with Sallows, as some of the texts made obscure references.

Bobbi-Jean said no messages were sent other than the ones provided to the board.

The board also heard a recording of a voicemail from Sallows left on Bobbi-Jean’s cell phone, in which the complainants claim Sallows again called them “squaws.”

The recording wasn’t clear and the board was not unanimously decided on whether it contained the word at issue.

Suzannah said two to three weeks after the text exchange, Sallows passed her in a car on Main Street, rolled down the window, and told Suzannah to “watch out.”

Both sisters denied slinging vitriol back at Sallows.

The sisters said they did not call Sallows a “crackhead,” “white trash,” or “the ugliest person in the world,” nor did they give her the finger.

They also denied that the police ever spoke to them about Sallows.

Suzannah said Sallows’ comments hurt her and that she didn’t believe an apology from Sallows at this point would be genuine.

Bobbi-Jean, who is currently a student at Yukon College, said her interactions with Sallows made her scared about work, which is why she went back to school.

She also didn’t think an apology from Sallows would be sincere, and said she’d like Sallows to address her anger problems and work on her communication skills.

It wasn’t all bad at the work site, the board heard. The sisters said Sallows brought them snacks, and once took the crew out for lunch at the 202.

The board heard that Sallows was out of the territory and could not be reached.

The Star was unable to reach Sallows.

The Simon sisters filed their complaints with the human rights commission on Aug. 7, 2015.

Colleen Harrington, legal counsel for the human rights commission, said the sisters were asking the board to make a finding of harassment based on sex and ancestry and for Sallows to be found liable.

In a closing statement, Michael Harrison, a University of Victoria co-op student who was assisting Harrington, said Sallows’ alleged behaviour constitutes harassment because her comments were “vexatious” in nature and because she should have known that they would be unwelcome.

Harrison argued that Sallows’ alleged comments were discriminatory as they caused greater suffering to the sisters because of their identities as First Nations women. The effects were more severe, he said, “than race or sex would indicate by themselves.”

Sallows discriminated further because her alleged comments stereotyped people of First Nations ancestry as substance abusers, said Harrison.

The Yukon Human Rights Act defines discrimination as the unfavourable treatment of any person or group based on sex, “ancestry, including colour and race,” and a number of other grounds, including religion, age, sexual orientation, political association and physical or mental disability.

Under the act, “No person shall discriminate ... in connection with any aspect of employment or application for employment.”

The complainants will submit their desired remedy to the board by Feb. 7, and the board will decide on the case after that. There is no set date for a decision, but it should be within the next six months, said a board spokesperson.

In an interview with the Star last July, Jessica Lott Tompson, the commission’s director of human rights, explained the process of resolving human rights cases this way:

“It’s not a criminal process, and it’s not like civil litigation; you don’t want to reward or punish.... It’s designed to make the person whole again.”

If the complaint is proven, the board may order the respondent to stop the discrimination, to pay damages to the complainants for “injury to dignity, feelings, or self-respect,” and damages for “financial loss suffered as a result of the discrimination.”

The Yukon Human Rights Commission is a quasi-judicial body that administers the Yukon Human Rights Act and is independent from the Yukon government.