Regulator punishes previously disciplined pharmacist for professional misconduct By: Tyler Searle Posted: 4:41 PM CST Monday, Dec. 1, 2025

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/12/2025 (293 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba pharmacist with a history of complaints has been punished for professional misconduct after he admitted to forming inappropriate relationships with two “vulnerable” patients in recent years.

The College of Pharmacists of Manitoba fined and suspended Michael Watts, and also imposed a practice condition prohibiting him from being a pharmacy manager or preceptor for two years.

According to a disciplinary report released in late October, Watts appeared before the college discipline committee on June 24 and admitted to entering into an “inappropriate relationship with a vulnerable patient” between February 2022 and June 2022.

He admitted to the same offence with another vulnerable patient, or former patient, between 2021 and 2022, the report states.

“Watts tendered no evidence and made no submissions” other than to admit he “demonstrated professional misconduct, conduct unbecoming a member, and a lack of knowledge or skill or judgment in the practice of pharmacy,” it says.

“The Panel’s decision not only achieves each of the main principles of sentencing, including denunciation, punishment, and specific deterrence for Mr. Watts, but it also addresses the principle of general deterrence to dissuade other registrants from engaging in similar misconduct.”

The report does not include any details about Watts’ relationships with the patients, but notes they happened while he was working at Northway Pharmacy Brothers.

The building at 542 Selkirk Ave. is also home to Phoenix Recovery, which assists people dependent on opiates through opioid-replacement therapy.

In 2020, Watts was subject to a complaint involving “non-pharmacist staff dispensing and witnessing methadone doses,” the report notes.

According to the college’s online registry, Watts is now listed as an employee at Clarke’s Pharmacy in Thompson.

Watts graduated from the University of Manitoba in 2006 and has been registered as a pharmacist since June of that year.

The report says Watts has a history of forming inappropriate relationships while at work, with the college receiving other complaints about possible misconduct in 2016 and 2019.

The college censured him in January 2019, after a complainant alleged he “entered into an inappropriate relationship with a female employee and displayed other inappropriate behaviour with staff and patients.”

In February 2023, the college sent him a reminder letter connected to the 2016 complaint “which advised him that he was to maintain a professional relationship with each patient and of his responsibilities and obligations to respect boundaries,” the report says.

The college suspended Watts for a total of nearly nine months following the June hearing, with credit for more than six months of time he spent on an interim suspension before the decision was rendered.

He was ordered to pay a $7,500 fine, and an additional $15,000 in costs associated with the college’s investigation into the complaints against him.

The money accounts for only a “small percentage” of the college’s costs, but “reflects Mr. Watts’ co-operation with the investigation and with the hearing,” the report states.

Two other Manitoba pharmacists also recently faced fines for misconduct.

In one case, the manager of a Shoppers Drug Mart in Morden was ordered to pay a $4,000 fine and $4,000 in costs after pleading guilty to poor record-keeping, reporting and oversight of controlled substances.

In another case, the discipline committee found a pharmacist from Melita Super Thrifty Pharmacy guilty of numerous instances of misconduct, including poor record-keeping and reporting and dispensing high doses of opioids without ensuring prescription requirements.

He was fined $5,000 and ordered to pay $20,000 in costs toward the investigation.

As in Watts’ case, those pharmacists were subject to disciplinary hearings last spring, but the reports detailing their offences and punishments were not published online until late October.

A spokesperson for the college said it takes time to draft decision orders. They are then delivered to the registrant, who has 30 days to appeal them.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca