Grievance Case Summary - G-262

The Grievor volunteered to work, on five different occasions, in a special program set up by the Insurance Corporation of his province. He travelled to and from the work site in his private vehicle and submitted a claim for a "private vehicle allowance". The claim was denied by the Officer-in-charge of the Detachment. Therefore, the Grievor submitted a grievance requesting payment of his mileage. The Grievor's submission was that: (1) the fact that it was voluntary was irrelevant; (2) the grievance is based on the interpretation of the overtime provisions in the Administration Manual; and (3) the program was administered by the RCMP.

The Grievance Advisory Board ("GAB") recommended that the grievance be denied, saying that the program was not an RCMP program administered by the RCMP but was a provincial campaign.

The Level I adjudicator denied the grievance on the basis that the Grievor had volunteered for the assignments and also because he had not obtained prior authorization for his travel expenses.

On September 28, 2001, the ERC issued its findings and recommendations. The Committee recommended that the grievance be allowed. It noted its disagreement with the premise that members who volunteer for specific assignments renounce any entitlement to travel allowances provided for by Treasury Board's Travel Directive. The Committee pointed out specific past cases supporting that view.

The Committee concluded that the Grievor's failure to obtain pre-authorization from his superiors for payment of a private vehicle allowance was not relevant. The Travel Directive does not state that pre-authorization is required for payment of a private vehicle allowance. Rather, pre-authorization is required both to travel to the workplace and to work an overtime shift. In this instance, both conditions were met. The Committee indicated that it was important for the Force to understand that it has no discretion in the matter of whether or not it will abide by the requirements of the Travel Directive and the practice of attempting to discourage members from claiming allowances to which they are entitled is therefore completely unacceptable.

The Committee concluded that the only relevant consideration for the purpose of determining whether the Grievor was entitled to a private vehicle allowance was whether he was "required to use transportation services other than normal and reasonable public or government-arranged transportation service". There was not indication from the grievance record that such services were available. Therefore, the Grievor should be entitled to an allowance at the employer's request rate, in accordance with the Travel Directive.

On January 9, 2002, the Commissioner rendered his decision in this case. His decision, as summarized by his office, is as follows:

The Commissioner agreed with the External Review Committee that the issue of pre-authorization for travel was not relevant and that the fact that the Grievor had volunteered for extra duties was not determinative of this issue. He submitted that the central issue in this case was whether, in these particular circumstances, the Grievor was required to perform the extra duties. To further explain his position, the Commissioner considered the following question: "if no volunteer had been available to perform these duties would the RCMP have redeployed or rescheduled other personnel or, alternately, required a member to attend on overtime in order to meet an operational requirement?" His answer to that question was no. He indicated that with respect to the Counter Attack agreement, the RCMP had to use its best efforts to deploy additional personnel on road checks but that the use of personnel other than those who had volunteered was not permitted. This reasoning was designed to protect the public interest by ensuring that existing police contracts, programs and budgets were not negatively impacted by the agreement. The Commissioner also stated that compensation at the overtime rate was an incentive to attract volunteers because members could neither be redeployed from other duties nor required to perform the extra duties under the RCMP overtime policy.

Considering the above, the Commissioner found that the Grievor was not required to perform the extra duties. If he or other members had not volunteered in sufficient number, the additional road checks and foot patrols would not have been performed. The Commissioner concluded that the RCMP policy and consequently the Treasury Board Travel Directive did not apply. The grievance was therefore denied.

Regarding the cases G-227 and G-238 which were mentioned by External Review Committee, the Commissioner found that the circumstances in these cases were different and did not apply to the present matter.