# 2025-020 Pay and Benefits, Pay

Case summary

F&R Date: 2026-04-14

The grievor contested the time it took the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to implement new rates of pay for the Legal Officer occupation. He argued that the Treasury Board (TB) approved the new rates on 2 May 2024, retroactive to 1 April 2022. However the CAF took 10 months to adjust his pay. He argued they had no legal authority to continue paying members at the old rates after new rates were approved, in accordance with Compensation and Benefits Instruction for the Canadian Forces (CBI) 1.06 - Effective Date, and CBI 203.03 - Issue of Pay and Allowances, paragraph 4 - Accumulation of Credit Balances, which states that the accumulation of credit balances in pay accounts shall not be permitted except when the Chief of the Defence Staff determines that an accumulation is required to meet the needs of the Canadian Forces.

The Director General of Compensation and Benefits, acting as the Initial Authority (IA), rejected the grievance, finding that the grievor's submission failed to conform to the regulations under article 7.01, Right to Grieve, of the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces, in that the grievor does not have the right to grieve a decision of a board, commission, court or tribunal established other than under the National Defence Act and his grievance had to do with a TB decision, an organization that is established under the Financial Administration Act. 

The Committee, having accepted the referral from the Final Authority (FA), determined that since the grievance had to do with implementation timeframes and not the rates of pay themselves, it therefore was mistakenly rejected by the IA. 

The Committee found that while the TB approved new rates of pay in May 2024, at no point did the CAF provide an exact date or timeline for their implementation as the revision was understood to be a complex process. The Committee learned that the Director Pay Policy and Development (DPPD) had estimated a 9 to 12-month implementation period, and the grievor had in fact received his pay adjustment in 10 months.  The Committee then found that such a timeframe was consistent with other pay system revisions in the CAF and across the Federal Public Service and that the DPPD provided a satisfactory explanation for the delay. Consequently, the Committee found that the delay was not unreasonable, the grievor was not aggrieved and recommended the FA deny the grievance and not afford the requested redress.