A Christian woman has been awarded $8,500 by a human rights tribunal that found a company did not hire her in part because of her religion.
Bethany Paquette will receive the compensation for injury to her "dignity and self respect" after she received a string of vitriolic emails from Amaruk Wilderness Corporation in response to a job application.
The Canadian based adventure company advertised for an "assistant guide internship" position in 2014 but after applying Paquette was rejected by the company's CEO Christophe Fragassi, the National Post reports.
Along with her rejection notice, Paquette received emails from Amaruk insulting her Christian background. The graduate had noted in her application she had attended Trinity Western University, a private Christian institution near Vancouver.
"Graduates from Trinity Western University are not welcome in our company," Paquette was told by an executive named as Olaf Amundsen.
"God bless is very offensive to me," the same purported official wrote later. "I do not want to be blessed by some guy who was conceived by a whore, outside of marriage ... If I was to meet the guy, I'd actually f— him."
The young Christian told the court Fragassi "was clearly the directing mind of the company" and "should be held personally liable" for the insulting emails.
The company, which is partially based in Norway, defended itself by saying it no longer operated in Canada and therefore did not come under its jurisdiction.
However the tribunal ruled that "both Amaruk, through its employee's actions, and Mr Fragassi-Bjornsen have discriminated against Ms Paquette on the ground of religion by harassing her for presumed religious beliefs and declining to accept her application for an internship, in part because of those beliefs."
Fragassi was ordered to pay $8,500 for injuries and a further $661 in court fees.
