# 2022-260 Careers, Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, Pension Entitlements, Re-Enrollment, Review of the Terms of Service Offered to Re-Enrollees Prior to May 2005, Terms of Service

Case summary

F&R Date: 2024-10-25

The Committee had to determine whether the grievor's 20-year Intermediate Engagement (IE20) Terms of Service (TOS) was administered according to the applicable provisions. The grievor challenged the revocation of his IE20, and noted that the Fixed Period of Service (FPS) he was offered instead on 15 February 2005 had a termination date of 30 November 2021, and that this, in combination with his 136 days of previous service credit, would bring him to 20 years of paid service. He alleged that he was assured by his unit that he would still be entitled to an immediate unreduced annuity at the end of his FPS, which was true at the time of signature, before changes to pension legislation came into effect. As redress, that grievor requested that his original IE20 TOS offered on 16 December 2004 be reinstated

The Director General Military Careers (DGMC), acting as the Initial Authority (IA), refused to consider the grievance. DGMC found that the grievor had not submitted his grievance within the required time limit as he should have known that he was aggrieved on 31 March 2005 when he accepted the FPS because military personnel are responsible for learning about both actual and potential outcomes of their TOS, including pension implications, before accepting new TOS. The IA acknowledged that the change to the pension legislation two years later was unforeseen, unexpected, and beyond the grievor's control, but found that it had not caused him to be aggrieved. Having concluded that the grievor was not aggrieved, the IA found that it would not be in the interests of justice to accept and consider his grievance. 

The Committee found that at the time when the grievor was offered further TOS, policy dictated that re-enrolled Non-Commissioned Members were to be offered successive FPS to the 20-cumulative-year point, rather than an IE20. As such, the Committee found that the grievor's Commanding Officer only had the delegated authority to offer him an FPS rather than an IE for his second TOS, due to him being a re-enrolled member. The Committee acknowledged that there was an error in the type of TOS the grievor was offered, and that the policy also specified that acceptance of TOS was irrevocable. However, the Committee found it reasonable that the Canadian Armed Forces corrected their error in changing the grievor's TOS to a FPS, and therefore found that the grievor was not aggrieved. The Committee also acknowledged that when the grievor accepted the FPS, he was entitled to an unreduced immediate annuity after 20 years of service, but that subsequent policy changes altered the grievor's entitlements and, as he did not meet the conditions of the grandfathering provisions, he was now required to complete 25 years of pensionable service in order to receive an unreduced immediate annuity. The Committee recommended that the Final Authority not afford the grievor redress.