On February 6, 2026, Frances Widdowson’s case against Mount Royal University was appealed before the Alberta Labour Relations Board.
On December 20, 2021, Widdowson was fired after being a tenured professor at Mount Royal University for 13 years.
This resulted in a abitration process that Widdowson describes as “abusive”. She had to wait a year for the arbitration to begin. Then, the hearing lasted 30 days over eleven months in 2023, eight of which Widdowson had to spend on the stand. This was because the arbitrator failed to get MRU to particularize its case, and Widdowson only found out what the case was in January 2024 (two months after the hearing was completed).
On July 2, 2024, Arbitrator Jones issued his ruling. Although Jones asserted that Widdowson had been wrongfully terminated, he maintained that her relationship with Mount Royal University was no longer viable, and therefore she could not be reinstated.
Widdowson’s case involved 10 grievances, but the union decided not to appeal the findings of harassment and the procedural problems. Widdowson discovered in arbitration, and this was confirmed in 2024, that this was because the union had filed grievances on behalf of Gabrielle Lindstrom (Weasel Head), D.A. Dirks and Renae Watchman, claiming that MRU did not do enough to protect them from the “unsafe work environment” created by Widdowson’s attempts on social media to defend herself from an academic mobbing.
Widdowson alleges that the union did not appeal her grievances because they needed her
to be found to have engaged in “harassment” for the grievances of Lindstrom (Weasel
Head), Dirks and Watchman to be successful. Widdowson will have to pursue the union
separately to rectify this matter.
The union’s case for Widdowson, therefore, is much less robust than it should be. All
that remains is the lack of reinstatement and financial compensation question. The
union is appealing the lack of reinstatement and financial award.
Jones provided nine “reasons” for why Widdowson could not be reinstated.
All of these reasons, except #6, are considered by the union to be “unreasonable”. The sixth
reason is being contested on the grounds that it violated the principle of natural justice.
In making its case for her lack of reinstatement, Michael Ford presented a number of documents on February 6, 2026. These documents are provided below.
The arbitration process has been a very difficult one for Widdowson to go through. This is because the process is deferential to the system that created it. When there has been a fundamental breakdown, such as a union that is not fairly representative, or an arbitrator that just accept the judgement of investigators paid for by MRU instead of using his own reasoning, the outcome is going to be understadably flawed. We will see whether the Alberta Labour Relations Board is more objective, but the reality is that they rarely overturn decisions as they are deferential to the arbitrator.
