Case dismissed: Ex-Winnipeg police officer's suit 'an abuse of the court process,' judge rules

Tessa Adamski · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 14, 2025 4:02 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

A Manitoba justice has dismissed a suit filed by a erstwhile Winnipeg constabulary serviceman who alleged her petition to transportation to different portion was unfairly rejected and that she was "constructively dismissed" from her presumption pursuing complaints against her that led to a toxic workplace culture. 

Belinda Duncan, who worked arsenic a elder constable astatine the Winnipeg Police Service from December 2000 to April 2022, sued the City of Winnipeg successful June 2023 claiming she was subjected to bias, systemic favoritism and employment inequality.

Associate Judge Jennifer Goldenberg struck the connection of assertion successful its entirety without permission to amend due to the fact that Duncan didn't record an exertion done the courts to further analyse whether the overall process had been handled fairly, according to a Manitoba Court of King's Bench written determination past week.

By not pursuing the due procedure, Duncan's suit was an maltreatment of the tribunal process, Goldenberg wrote.

Duncan's suit said she applied for a lateral transportation to the police's assemblage relations diverseness portion successful December 2017, and was informed the pursuing March that she had not been selected, adjacent though she had seniority implicit palmy candidates. 

Duncan asked wherefore her transportation petition had been denied and claims Insp. Bonnie Emerson of the assemblage engagement portion told her she wasn't the close acceptable for the absorption the work was moving, the suit said. 

City denied appeal

Duncan applied to entreaty the transportation decision, which was subsequently denied by the City of Winnipeg, which oversees the constabulary service, Goldenberg wrote.

In April, Duncan was offered a impermanent presumption successful the schoolhouse acquisition conception for the autumn and was told she would beryllium considered for the diverseness portion successful 2019, the suit said. However, the connection was pulled aft she was the taxable of 2 complaints filed by the constabulary service. 

Const. Maria Buduhan alleged Duncan was spreading rumours astir Buduhan's idiosyncratic beingness and enactment experience. The 2nd complaint, filed by Emerson, accused Duncan of disrespectful and insubordinate behaviour, the suit said. 

A determination was made successful July that Duncan had breached the respectful workplace modular successful respect to the Buduhan complaint, but the metropolis decided successful March 2019 that this complaint, on with Emerson's, had insufficient grounds to enactment a complaint against Duncan.

Duncan's suit claimed she was subjected to mendacious and malicious accusations. 

In April 2019, Duncan filed a ailment with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission alleging the transportation determination made by the constabulary main was discriminatory. However, the committee dismissed this ailment successful October 2021 due to the fact that the quality of her concerns fell wrong the overlap jurisdiction betwixt the labour process and the commission's ailment process, the tribunal determination says. 

Duncan approached the Manitoba Labour Board successful May 2022 alleging that her union, the Winnipeg Police Association, breached its work of just practice and committed an unfair labour practice. 

Application dismissed

That September, the committee dismissed the exertion and recovered determination is nary proposition that the union's "conduct was successful immoderate mode discriminatory, arbitrary oregon successful atrocious faith."

The committee besides recovered Duncan had not requested a grievance to beryllium filed astir a imaginable constructive dismissal. 

The tribunal determination says Duncan was not terminated from her employment, but alternatively she resigned. 

In October 2022, Duncan filed an exertion to reappraisal the board's dismissal, which was past dismissed successful January 2023. 

The City of Winnipeg said the taxable substance of the quality rights ailment and the labour committee exertion are the aforesaid and arose from a quality astir the transportation refusal, the tribunal determination said.

Goldenberg said she agrees with the city. 

Instead of filing an exertion for judicial reappraisal done the Manitoba Court of King's Bench with respect to either dismissals by the labour committee oregon quality rights commission, Duncan filed a lawsuit, which was an "abuse of the process of this tribunal and a collateral attack" against the committee and commission, Goldenberg wrote. 

"Although granting the City's question leaves Ms. Duncan with nary further avenue to prosecute the matter, that does not mean she is entitled to writer the City for wrongful dismissal," Goldenberg said.