Departmental Performance Report 2014-15: Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Chairperson’s Message
• Section I: Organizational Expenditure Overview
  • Organizational Profile
  • Organizational Context
  • Actual Expenditures
  • Alignment of Spending With the Whole-of-Government Framework
  • Departmental Spending Trend
  • Expenditures by Vote
• Section II: Analysis of Program(s) by Strategic Outcome
  • Strategic Outcome: The Chief of Defence Staff and members of the Canadian Forces have access to a fair, independent and timely review of military grievances.
  • Program 1.1: Review Canadian Forces grievances.
  • Internal Services
• Section III: Supplementary Information
  • Financial Statements Highlights
  • Financial Statements
  • Supplementary Information Table
  • Tax Expenditures and Evaluations
• Section IV: Organizational Contact Information
• Appendix: Definitions
• Endnotes

Chairperson’s Message

As the Chairperson of the Military Grievances External Review Committee, I am pleased to submit the Committee’s Departmental Performance Report for 2014-15.

The report covers a period that was particularly challenging for the Committee as the volume of cases referrals increased significantly, testing the capacity and agility of both the operations and internal services divisions to adjust and adapt. I am pleased to report here that, despite this surge, the Committee was able to achieve great results with regard to its first priority - Ensuring optimum productivity and excellence. As you will see in the pages of this report, the Committee met its efficiency targets and continued to produce high quality Findings and Recommendations. We did this by assessing our internal review processes on a regular basis to ensure an efficient distribution of tasks and maximization of resources. We also continued to conduct analysis of the Final Authority decisions as well as Federal Court decisions.

The Committee was also active with regard to our second priority - To communicate the Committee’s role and activities, with base visits, town halls meetings and the publication of case summaries and other relevant information related to case review on our Web site. We also developed a social media strategy to reach out for wider audiences of stakeholders and the general public.

I am also pleased to report progress in various areas of internal services in response to the Committee’s third priority - To exercise leadership and to ensure the overall effective management. Most notably, in 2014-15, the Committee completed a first cycle of the new Performance Management directive for all employees, participated in a Web Renewal Initiative’s pilot project in preparation for the launch of a new Government of Canada Web site, reorganized its Information Management and Information Technology sections and continued to engage its employees in the government-wide Blueprint 2020 initiative.

The positive results reported here testify to the efforts and commitment of every member of the Committee’s staff to contribute to the organization’s success. However, when we assess our achievements and reflect on our lessons learned, we continue to keep an eye on the challenges to come. As a federal organization entrusted by Canadians to conduct our mandate at the highest level of efficiency and quality, we are determined to increasingly learn and improve.

Bruno Hamel
Chairperson

Section I: Organizational Expenditure Overview

Organizational Profile

Appropriate Minister: The Honourable Harjit Singh Sajjan, Minister of National Defence

Institutional Head: Bruno Hamel, Chairperson

Ministerial Portfolio: National Defence

Enabling Instrument: National Defence Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. N-5^{Endnote i}

Year of Incorporation / Commencement: 2000

Other: About the Committee^{Endnote ii}

Mandate

The Military Grievances External Review Committee is an independent administrative tribunal reporting to Parliament through the Minister of National Defence.

The Military Grievances External Review Committee reviews military grievances referred to it pursuant to section 29 of the National Defence Act and provides findings and recommendations to the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Canadian Armed Forces member who submitted the grievance.

Organizational Context

Raison d’être

The raison d’être of the Military Grievances External Review Committee (the Committee or MGERC) is to provide an independent and external review of military grievances. Section 29 of the National Defence Act (NDA) provides a statutory right for an officer or a non-commissioned member who has been aggrieved, to grieve a decision, an act or an omission in the administration of the affairs of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). The importance of this broad right cannot be overstated since it is, with certain narrow exceptions, the only formal complaint process available to CAF members.

Responsibilities

The Committee reviews military grievances referred to it and provides findings and recommendations (F&Rs) to the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) and the officer or non-commissioned member who submitted the grievance.

The Committee also has the obligation to deal with all matters before it as informally and expeditiously as the circumstances and the considerations of fairness permit.

Strategic Outcome(s) and Program Alignment Architecture

1. Strategic Outcome: The Chief of the Defence Staff and members of the Canadian Forces have access to a fair, independent and timely review of military grievances.

1.1. Program: Review Canadian Forces grievances

Internal Services

Organizational Priorities

Risk Analysis

Risk #1 – There is a risk that the Committee will be perceived as not adding value to the CAF grievance process. Some risk drivers include: the Committee’s composition and the quality and timeliness of the F&R it provides. To mitigate this risk, the Committee has ensured the quality and timeliness of its product by monitoring its internal grievance processes and timelines, conducting quality assurance processes, training staff and Committee Members, and putting appropriate staffing strategies in place.

Risk # 2 – There is a risk that the Committee will be unable to adapt to a significant fluctuation of grievances. The Committee has no control over the volume of cases referred to it by the CAF. As a micro organization, it has limited capacity to react to a sudden influx of grievance referrals. This could result in the Committee being challenged to meet its internal productivity standards. To mitigate this risk, the Committee has conducted regular assessments of its internal grievance review processes to identify further opportunities for streamlining, has maintained regular communications with the CAF to closely monitor workload planning assumptions, and has ensured that appropriate and flexible staffing strategies are in place.

Risk # 3 – There is a risk that the Committee will not have the appropriate staff to carry out its mandate. A risk factor is that the members of the Committee are appointed and their mandates renewed by the Governor in Council. Another risk factor is the Committee’s capacity to recruit and retain a skilled workforce. The Committee's effectiveness is due in large part to its knowledgeable and stable workforce. However, like other micro agencies, it is challenging to retain employees when, for the most part, the size of the organization limits the number of internal opportunities for advancement. To mitigate this risk, the Committee has planned for succession in key positions and developed a variety of staffing mechanisms. As well, it ensured knowledge transfer by developing lessons learned, procedures and manuals. The Committee has also engaged with the Portfolio’s Minister in anticipation of appointments or mandate renewals of Committee members.

Actual Expenditures

The Committee's planned spending has been fairly stable over the years. The Committee's actual spending was $6.2 million in 2014-15, an increase of 4% compared to the previous year. The increase was mainly due to an increase in personnel expenditures, which is primarily attributed to the hiring of personnel to manage the increase in volume of grievances.

Alignment of Spending With the Whole-of-Government Framework

Departmental Spending Trend

During 2014-15, MGERC’s spending amounted to $6,250 thousands. The graph illustrates spending trend from previous years and planned spending for future years to 2017-18. Planned spending will remain constant.

Expenditures by Vote

For information on the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s organizational voted and statutory expenditures, consult the Public Accounts of Canada 2015,^{Endnote v} which is available on the Public Works and Government Services Canada website.^{Endnote vi}

Section II: Analysis of Program(s) by Strategic Outcome

Strategic Outcome: The Chief of Defence Staff and members of the Canadian Forces have access to a fair, independent and timely review of military grievances.

Program 1.1: Review Canadian Forces grievances.

Description

The Military Grievances External Review Committee, an independent tribunal, reviews military grievances referred to it pursuant to section 29 of the National Defence Act which provides a statutory right for an officer or a non-commissioned member who has been aggrieved, to grieve a decision, an act or an omission in the administration of the affairs of the Canadian Armed Forces; this is, with certain narrow exceptions, the only formal complaint process available to members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Committee provides findings and recommendations to the Chief of the Defence Staff and the member who submitted the grievance. The findings and recommendations may also identify issues with policies or other matters of broad concern. The Committee conducts its review as informally and expeditiously as the circumstances and the considerations of fairness permit.

The Committee reports the results of its activities through its annual report and various publications.

Performance Analysis and Lessons Learned

Independent review

The Committee’s F&R provide both the grievor and the CAF authorities with an analysis of the file, as well as an explanation of the Committee’s assessment of the case.

Starting in 2014, the Committee made changes to the way it captures its statistics for cases where it had determined that a CAF member has been aggrieved. The Committee recommended to grant full or partial remedy in 92.4% of such cases.

The following graph sets out the distribution in percentage of the Committee's Findings by year.

Figure 1: Findings issued between 2011 and 2015 (637 cases) as of March 31, 2015

Note: Totals may not add to 100% due to rounding.

* Cases that were referred for which the Committee concluded that the matter was not grievable or the party had no right to grieve (e.g. a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces).

Federal Court decisions

In deciding a grievance reviewed by the Committee, the CDS or his/her delegate is not bound by the Committee’s F&R. However, if he or she does not agree with the Committee, reasons must be provided. The decision of the final authority (FA) is then final and binding under Section 29.15 of the National Defence Act “except for judicial review under the Federal Courts Act.” This means that, unless a CAF member applies for judicial review, FA decisions – whether in agreement with the Committee or not – cannot be challenged and must be implemented by the CAF, when necessary.

The Federal Court is the first court level to hear a judicial review application. The Committee is aware of at least 17 cases that are underway before the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal in 2014. In the period covered by this report, the Federal Court reviewed and decided two cases which merit attention for their contribution to the jurisprudence on de novo reviews and the adequacy of reasons.

De Novo review – In this case, the grievor contested the remedial measure he received, a counselling and probation (C&P), alleging breaches of procedural fairness. The Committee agreed that the grievor’s right to procedural fairness was breached and recommended that the C&P be cancelled. However, upon review of the file, the Committee also found that the evidence supported a finding that the conduct of the grievor had been deficient and departed from established standards; and that he should have received an initial counselling (IC).

The FA accepted the Committee’s finding that the C&P had not been issued in accordance with the Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAOD) 5019-4, Remedial Measures, and was thus not valid. However, the FA performed a de novo review of the underlying facts and imposed on the grievor a recorded warning (RW), which was more severe than the remedial measure recommended by the Committee. The grievor challenged the CDS decision in court.

The Federal Court found in favour of the grievor, concluding that “the procedural deficiencies of the DAOD cannot be corrected in retrospect by the FA.” It further found that the FA had exceeded his authority “by replacing an invalid measure of performance with a new measure of conduct.”

Adequacy of reasoning - In this case, the Federal Court issued a decision with respect to the adequacy of the FA’s reasons in the grievance process. Here, the grievor had been released on the basis that he was unfit to serve due to medical employment limitations (MELs) assigned to him by the Director Medical Policy (D Med Pol). In the grievor’s opinion, the decision of the D Med Pol to change his medical category was based on incomplete and inaccurate information. He contended that he had not been assessed by a medical officer and that, furthermore, the D Med Pol had rendered a decision without reviewing his actual medical file.

The Committee found that the permanent MELs imposed by D Med Pol on the grievor were inconsistent with the medical opinions of the medical officer and the grievor’s specialist, who treated him for several years. In addition, the Committee found that absolutely no reasons were given to justify the major discrepancies between the MELs recommended by the grievor’s medical officer and those assigned by D Med Pol. The Committee concluded that, in the absence of a valid medical opinion that would support the assigned MELs, as drafted, the medical release could not stand. The FA disagreed with the Committee’s F&R and accepted the D Med Pol’s opinion that the grievor was unfit to serve due to his MELs. The grievor applied for judicial review.

The Court noted that while the FA relied on and completely accepted the D Med Pol’s opinion, he did not fully explain why he had rejected the grievor’s specialist diagnosis, which was at odds with the D Med Pol’s evaluation.

To read more about these decisions consult the Committee’s Annual Report 2014.^{Endnote vii}

Internal Services

Description

Internal Services are groups of related activities and resources that are administered to support the needs of programs and other corporate obligations of an organization. These groups are Management and Oversight Services, Communications Services, Legal Services, Human Resources Management Services, Financial Management Services, Information Management Services, Information Technology Services, Real Property Services, Materiel Services, Acquisition Services, and Travel and Other Administrative Services. Internal Services include only those activities and resources that apply across an organization and not those provided to a specific program.

Performance Analysis and Lessons Learned

Human Resources capacity and competencies – Due to commitments from the CAF to reduce the existing backlog of grievances at the Initial Authority (IA) level, the Committee saw an increase in the volume of grievance referrals. This had implications for the Committee’s work processes and associated human and financial resources. The Committee managed this significant workload increase through proactive staffing and adjusting internal resources to increase efficiency.

Standard Business Practices – MGERC was an early adopter of standard government wide technology including GCDOCs and Peoplesoft.

On site security measures were enhanced to reflect increased risk identified by lead security agencies.

Section III: Supplementary Information

Financial Statements Highlights

Financial Statements

The financial highlights presented within this report are intended to serve as a general overview of the Committee’s operations. The Committee’s financial statements^{Endnote viii} can be found on its website.

Supplementary Information Table

The supplementary information table listed in the 2014–15 Departmental Performance Report is available on the Military Grievances External Review Committee’s website:

• Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy

Tax Expenditures and Evaluations

The tax system can be used to achieve public policy objectives through the application of special measures such as low tax rates, exemptions, deductions, deferrals and credits. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for these measures annually in the Tax Expenditures and Evaluations^{Endnote ix} publication. The tax measures presented in the Tax Expenditures and Evaluations publication are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.

Section IV: Organizational Contact Information

Military Grievances External Review Committee

60 Queen Street, 10th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5Y7
Canada

Telephone: 613-996-8529
Secure Telephone: 877-276-4193
Fax: 613-996-6491
Secure Fax: 613-995-8129
TDD: 877-986-1666
E-mail: mgerc-ceegm@mgerc-ceegm.gc.ca
Web: http://www.mgerc-ceegm.gc.ca

Appendix: Definitions

appropriation ( crédit):

Any authority of Parliament to pay money out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

budgetary expenditures ( dépenses budgétaires):

Includes operating and capital expenditures; transfer payments to other levels of government, organizations or individuals; and payments to Crown corporations.

Departmental Performance Report ( rapport ministériel sur le rendement):

Reports on an appropriated organization’s actual accomplishments against the plans, priorities and expected results set out in the corresponding Report on Plans and Priorities. These reports are tabled in Parliament in the fall.

full-time equivalent ( équivalent temps plein):

Is a measure of the extent to which an employee represents a full person-year charge against a departmental budget. Full-time equivalents are calculated as a ratio of assigned hours of work to scheduled hours of work. Scheduled hours of work are set out in collective agreements.

Government of Canada outcomes ( résultats du gouvernement du Canada):

A set of 16 high-level objectives defined for the government as a whole, grouped in four spending areas: economic affairs, social affairs, international affairs and government affairs.

Management, Resources and Results Structure ( Structure de la gestion, des ressources et des résultats):

A comprehensive framework that consists of an organization’s inventory of programs, resources, results, performance indicators and governance information. Programs and results are depicted in their hierarchical relationship to each other and to the Strategic Outcome(s) to which they contribute. The Management, Resources and Results Structure is developed from the Program Alignment Architecture.

non-budgetary expenditures ( dépenses non budgétaires):

Includes net outlays and receipts related to loans, investments and advances, which change the composition of the financial assets of the Government of Canada.

performance ( rendement):

What an organization did with its resources to achieve its results, how well those results compare to what the organization intended to achieve and how well lessons learned have been identified.

performance indicator ( indicateur de rendement):

A qualitative or quantitative means of measuring an output or outcome, with the intention of gauging the performance of an organization, program, policy or initiative respecting expected results.

performance reporting ( production de rapports sur le rendement):

The process of communicating evidence-based performance information. Performance reporting supports decision making, accountability and transparency.

planned spending ( dépenses prévues):

For Reports on Plans and Priorities ( RPPs) and Departmental Performance Reports ( DPRs), planned spending refers to those amounts that receive Treasury Board approval by February 1. Therefore, planned spending may include amounts incremental to planned expenditures presented in the Main Estimates.

A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their RPPs and DPRs.

plan ( plan):

The articulation of strategic choices, which provides information on how an organization intends to achieve its priorities and associated results. Generally a plan will explain the logic behind the strategies chosen and tend to focus on actions that lead up to the expected result.

priorities ( priorité):

Plans or projects that an organization has chosen to focus and report on during the planning period. Priorities represent the things that are most important or what must be done first to support the achievement of the desired Strategic Outcome(s).

program ( programme):

A group of related resource inputs and activities that are managed to meet specific needs and to achieve intended results and that are treated as a budgetary unit.

Program Alignment Architecture ( architecture d’alignement des programmes):

A structured inventory of an organization’s programs depicting the hierarchical relationship between programs and the Strategic Outcome(s) to which they contribute.

Report on Plans and Priorities ( rapport sur les plans et les priorités):

Provides information on the plans and expected performance of appropriated organizations over a three-year period. These reports are tabled in Parliament each spring.

result ( résultat):

An external consequence attributed, in part, to an organization, policy, program or initiative. Results are not within the control of a single organization, policy, program or initiative; instead they are within the area of the organization’s influence.

statutory expenditures ( dépenses législatives):

Expenditures that Parliament has approved through legislation other than appropriation acts. The legislation sets out the purpose of the expenditures and the terms and conditions under which they may be made.

Strategic Outcome ( résultat stratégique):

A long-term and enduring benefit to Canadians that is linked to the organization’s mandate, vision and core functions.

sunset program ( programme temporisé):

A time-limited program that does not have an ongoing funding and policy authority. When the program is set to expire, a decision must be made whether to continue the program. In the case of a renewal, the decision specifies the scope, funding level and duration.

target ( cible):

A measurable performance or success level that an organization, program or initiative plans to achieve within a specified time period. Targets can be either quantitative or qualitative.

voted expenditures ( dépenses votées):

Expenditures that Parliament approves annually through an Appropriation Act. The Vote wording becomes the governing conditions under which these expenditures may be made.

whole-of-government framework ( cadre pangouvernemental):

Maps the financial contributions of federal organizations receiving appropriations by aligning their Programs to a set of 16 government-wide, high-level outcome areas, grouped under four spending areas.

Endnotes