# 2019-063 Pay and Benefits, Meal expenses

Case summary

F&R Date: 2019-08-13

The grievor challenged the cessation of her meal allowance after her dependant son turned 21 during her posting to Riga, Latvia.

The Initial Authority denied the grievance on the basis that the Compensation and Benefits Instructions for the Canadian Forces (CBI) only authorizes payment of a meal allowance for Canadian Armed Force (CAF) members “without dependants…when entitlements to ship or store household goods and effects (HG&E) at public expense do not apply.”

The Committee noted that the grievor was not entitled to store her HG&E at the time of her prohibited posting to Latvia. Therefore, it found that she was entitled to a meal allowance in accordance with the CBI at the start of her posting. Further, while the grievor would have been technically entitled to store her HG&E at public expense after her son “aged out” of the dependant definition one month after her departure for Latvia, she was not authorized to leave the operational theatre, return to Canada and put her HG&E into storage at that time.

The Committee recognized the unique circumstances of the grievor's Latvia postings and recommended that the CAF seek Treasury Board authorization for the payment of meal allowances, or an exemption from the policy, for those CAF members without dependants who were posted prohibited to Latvia in 2017. If the authorization is granted, the Committee further recommended that the grievor receive a meal allowance for the duration of her stay in Riga, Latvia at the applicable rates.

FA decision summary

The Acting Chief of the Defence Staff, acting as Final Authority, agreed with the Committee's findings and recommendation. He noted that when the grievor was posted unaccompanied to Latvia, she was not entitled to ship or store her HG&E at public expense, and she was not given the opportunity to return to Canada mid-posting to move her HG&E into long term storage when her child ceased to qualify as a dependant. Since entitlement to meal allowance was afforded to unaccompanied members to whom entitlements to ship or store HG&E at public expense did not apply, he found that the change in dependant status had no bearing on her entitlement to meal allowance for the duration of the posting.