I will assume B.C. as your specific jurisdiction: there could be provincial differences. As phoog says, you certainly may mention this problem to management, who have an interest in keeping you happy. No law against that. As for the "legality" of sexual harassment, the CBA BC branch says that "Sexual harassment, which is discrimination based on sex, is illegal under the BC Human Rights Code". It is interesting to see what the code actually says. Section 8 Discrimination in accommodation, service and facility says
(1) A person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable
justification,
(a) deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation, service or
facility customarily available to the public, or
(b) discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any
accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public
because of the race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion,
marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex,
sexual orientation or age of that person or class of persons.
The question is whether using the term "babe" constitutes discrimination against a person regarding service because of sex.
This article on the Law Society of BC web site specifically identifies "verbal harassment" as an instance:
- Verbal harassment – This comes from anyone within the firm and or other workplace or a person who does business with the firm or
company. Some examples are: referring to an adult as a babe, honey,
girl or stud; whistling at someone; turning work discussion to sexual
topics; asking personal questions of a sexual nature; making sexual
comments about a person’s clothing, anatomy or looks; or asking
someone repeatedly for dates and refusing to take no for an answer.
(emphasis added). In case you're thinking that maybe there's a difference in what the code says regarding services and what it says regarding employment, section 13 Discrimination in Employment says:
(1) A person must not
(a) refuse to employ or refuse to continue to employ a person, or
(b) discriminate against a person regarding employment or any term or
condition of employment
because of the race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, political
belief, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental
disability, sex, sexual orientation or age of that person or because
that person has been convicted of a criminal or summary conviction
offence that is unrelated to the employment or to the intended
employment of that person.
In other words, it is defined simply in terms of "discrimination", which means "making a distinction".
It is known that unwanted sexual advances constitute illegal discrimination, see Janzen v. Platy Enterprises Ltd. [1989] 1 SCR 1252. The court found that
Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination. Sexual harassment
in the workplace is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that
detrimentally affects the work environment or leads to adverse
job‑related consequences for the victims of the harassment.
They did not, however, find that this is the only form of sexual discrimination (obviously, since it isn't). I can't point to case law indicating whether gender-biased expression are actionable, but that would be consistent with the letter of the law and "babe" is indeed an example cited in the Law Society article.