# 2024-119 Pay and Benefits, Allowances and Benefits, Canadian Forces Housing Differential, Reserve Force

Case summary

F&R Date: 2025-02-12

The grievor argued that the Canadian Forces Housing Differential (CFHD) allowance should be expanded to include Reserve Force (Res F) personnel who were not relocated at Crown expense. The grievor also suggested that it is discriminatory to require, as a condition of eligibility for the CFHD benefit, that a Res F member have been moved to the location at public expense, when the Res F member is carrying out the same tasks as colleagues in the same location who are eligible for the benefit. The Director General Compensation and Benefits, acting as the initial authority (IA), did not render a decision within the legislative time frame. As a result, the grievor requested that the file be forwarded to the Final Authority.

The Committee highlighted that Compensation and Benefits Instructions for the Canadian Forces (CBI) article 205.453(3) (Entitlement) limits entitlement to CFHD to Res F members on Class “B” or “C” service, who are either on a new period of employment at a new place of duty and have been authorized to move their Household Goods and Effects at public expense to that place of duty, or who are on a subsequent period of service in the same location as the previous place of duty where the new period of employment began. The Committee explained that the Canadian Armed Forces have no authority or discretion to pay the grievor CFHD except as authorized by the Treasury Board in the CBI.

The Committee found that because the grievor was not moved at public expense, he is not entitled to receive the new CFHD allowance. The Committee also explained that the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) does provide that, in the course of employment, it is a discriminatory practice to differentiate adversely in relation to an employee on a prohibited ground. However, the Committee found that the CHRA does not include workplace location as a prohibited ground of discrimination.

The Committee recommended that the Final Authority not afford the grievor redress.