Grievance Case Summary - G-505

The Grievor was transferred to a different city. He sold his home, with a possession date of February 12, 2009. Shortly after the sale, he bought a new home which was being built in his new city. He advised the Force that he would be on a vacation from February 9-28, 2009. He also claimed he would take possession of his new home around March 2, 2009. The Grievor's household effects were stored from February 9 to March 3, 2009. This resulted in a Storage-in-Transit (SIT) expense of $3,776.58. He took possession of his new home on March 2, 2009, as per his plan. He allegedly could not have done so sooner, since the builder "had workers inside the home that day finishing the house [and] had to send the painters back the following day".

The Grievor and a local relocation adviser agreed that subsection 10.07 of the 2008 Integrated Relocation Program: Relocation Policy for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (IRP) governed the payment of SIT costs. However, they found it unclear, and disagreed about how it ought to be applied. The Grievor believed it required his SIT costs to be paid out of the Core envelope, which generally funded basic relocation expenses in almost all moves. The relocation advisor thought it required the costs to be paid from the Personalized envelope (which may have meant out of the Grievor's pocket). She reasoned that the costs flowed from the Grievor's personal decision to select a closing date that fell after a vacation. The Grievor submitted a grievance.

A Level I Adjudicator accepted the Respondent's position and denied the grievance, despite the Grievor's claim that it was virtually impossible for him to move into his new home before he did.

The ERC agreed that subsection 10.07 of the IRP was confusing. It therefore analysed it, and the context of the IRP, as a whole. In so doing, it noted four things. First, SIT costs had to be "necessary" to be authorized. Second, the IRP's purpose was to ensure that the relocation process was carried out in the most efficient way and at the most reasonable cost to the Crown, while causing minimal detrimental effects on the member. Third, members were to reasonably try to minimize moving expenses. Fourth, those expenses had to be legitimate.

With these considerations in mind, the ERC found that the impugned decision was made on the basis of an inconsequential factor. Specifically, whether the Grievor vacationed between the time he moved out of his old home and into his new home was not determinative. Instead, the key questions were: when was his new home ready for occupancy, and was there other suitable occupancy that could have been ready sooner? These questions were never clearly answered. The resulting ambiguities left open a possibility that all, or part, of the Grievor's SIT costs were necessary. Without clear answers, a fully informed decision could not, and cannot, be made.

The ERC recommended to the Commissioner of the RCMP that he allow the grievance and order that the matter be returned to the proper authority for a review of how the Grievor's SIT expenses should be handled, once certain key information is obtained.

The Commissioner has rendered a decision in this matter, as summarized by his office:

The Commissioner found that the Grievor was entitled to be reimbursed for his storage-in-transit (SIT) costs from the Core relocation funding envelope and allowed the grievance.

The Commissioner disagreed with the Respondent's position that the Grievor's storage expenses were the result of a personal decision to delay taking possession of his new home in order to go on a pre-booked vacation. The Commissioner agreed with the ERC's conclusion that whether or not the Grievor took a vacation between the time he moved out of his old residence and into his new residence was an inconsequential factor. The Commissioner found that the record showed that the Grievor had made every reasonable attempt to achieve a door-to-door move.

The Commissioner concluded that SIT was necessary and incidental to the shipment of the Grievor's household effects to the new place of duty. Furthermore, he found that the Grievor would have been entitled to the reimbursement of Interim Accommodation, Meals and the Miscellaneous Relocation Allowance (IAM & MRA) for the entire three-week period that he was necessarily separated from his household effects, if he had not taken personal annual leave during that period. (The Grievor did receive IAM &MRA for three of those days, following his return from vacation.) Since IAM & MRA would have been authorized for the entire SIT period, his SIT costs should be funded from the Core envelope pursuant to sections 10.02.1 and 10.07.1.a)i) of the 2008 Integrated Relocation Program.