Over the next year, the grievance process moved through two further steps. I met again with Mary Munnoch and my Superintendent to argue the facts of the case. Again, the Archbishop's influence surfaced when Munnoch told me that I had "contravened the directions of the spiritual leader of the archdiocese." The Board did not agree that they were in violation of the Collective Agreement, and so we moved to Step Three: a meeting with the Assistant Directors at which OECTA's case was presented by Neil Doherty, from the Collective Bargaining department of OECTA Provincial. He warned the Directors that if no settlement was reached, they should be prepared for a challenge all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Again, they insisted that their decision was not politically motivated, but had been made in the interests of timetabling and the delivery of programs at my school. The case moved up to arbitration.

In October, 1993, arbitration began. The panel consisted of Gerald Charney, Q.C. (Chair), Eleanor Cronk, Q.C. (Board Nominee) and Mary Comish, Q.C (OECTA Nominee). The School Board's case, as presented by their counsel John Woon, was that I had become too controversial and was using the Board "as a soapbox" to advance my career and the interest of the Coalition of Concerned Canadian Catholics, a reform group I had co-founded in 1989. My identification in the media as a employee of the Board, it was stated, could have led some people to believe that the Board supported my views and this was "causing heat" for the Director.

Counsel for OECTA, Paul Cavalluzzo, put the real issue out on the table. He argued that I had been disciplined because I had "challenged the patriarchal power of the Catholic Church."

Over the course of eight days of hearings, spread over the next eight months, the Arbitration Panel heard evidence from the Director of Education, Dr. Tony Barone, Mary Munnoch, Superintendent of Personnel, and myself. Dr. Barone continued to deny that Archbishop Ambrozic had played a direct part in my removal. In his evidence, the Director denied that the Toronto Star article had been the immediate motivation, or that he had spoken with the Archbishop. Barone's order for my removal had been conveyed through a secret and undated memo to the Assistant Directors of Education. But under cross examination, he admitted that his recollection was that the memo had been issued sometime in the two weeks after the article was published.

In the last two days of summary from the lawyers, James Woon opened up the issue of "denominational rights." He argued that the Arbitration Panel had no jurisdiction over the teaching of religion in a Catholic school because the constitution gives a Catholic Board "unfettered rights" over religion teachers. Woon insisted that, even were the Panel to find in my favor, they could not order me reinstated because such a move would impinge on the constitutional rights of the Board.