Grievance Case Summary - G-605

In February 2008, the Grievor’s son booked a March 2009 high school graduation trip to the Caribbean through a tour company. Each month, beginning in February 2008, the tour company automatically charged the Grievor’s credit card with pre-authorized payments. However, in June 2008, the Grievor was issued a Notice of Transfer authorizing a cost transfer and advising that he would be relocated to another province with his family. As a result, the Grievor cancelled his son’s trip. The tour company denied the Grievor’s request for a refund according to its policy.

The Grievor submitted a claim for reimbursement of the trip cancellation expense pursuant to section 11.02 of the Integrated Relocation Program 2008 (2008 IRP), Sundry Accountable Incidental Relocation Expenses. Royal LePage Relocation Services advised him that they did not have authority to approve the reimbursement. The Grievor’s Relocation Advisor further advised the Grievor that, as the cancellation expense was not one of the permissible sundry expenses specifically identified in paragraph 11.02.3, his claim for reimbursement would require Treasury Board (TB) approval as an exceptional expense.

The Grievor submitted a business case claiming the trip cancellation expense as a sundry expense and requesting payment from the Core Envelope. The Respondent rendered a decision stating that she could not approve reimbursement from the Core Envelope as a sundry expense because the list of reimbursable sundry expenses contained in the paragraph was exhaustive. Trip cancellation expenses were not one of the specified items. The cancellation expense was attributable but not critical to the relocation and, as such, was to be funded from the Personalized Envelope, subject to availability of funds. The Grievor filed a grievance against this decision and added that the expense should be reimbursed under the exceptional circumstances provision of the IRP. During the early resolution phase, the Respondent contacted Treasury Board (TB). As a result, TB denied the Grievor’s expense under the Core Envelope. The Level I Adjudicator denied the grievance on the merits on the basis that section 11.02 of the 2008 IRP contained an exhaustive list of the items to be reimbursed from the Core Envelope as sundry expenses. As the school trip cancellation expense was not listed, it could not be funded from the Core Envelope.

The ERC found that, as TB did not undertake an analysis of whether the Grievor’s circumstances constituted exceptional circumstances for purposes of the IRP, it rendered no decision on this issue. As a result, this grievance is not moot.

At the time of the events giving rise to the grievance, the applicable IRP was the 2007 IRP. In the spring of 2009, TB directed the Force to apply the 2008 IRP retroactively to all relocation files created within a certain time frame, one of which was the Grievor’s. Exceptionally and in light of TB’s direction to the Force, the ERC reviewed the grievance pursuant to the provisions of the 2008 IRP. It found that the Grievor had not met his burden of persuasion that the expense of the cancellation of the trip was incurred in exceptional circumstances.

The ERC recommended to the Commissioner of the RCMP that he deny the grievance.

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

The Grievor presented a grievance after learning that he was not going to be reimbursed for the trip cancellation expense that he wished to be assessed as an exceptional expense. The Respondent argued that the list of sundry expenses, which did not include trip cancellation fees, is all-inclusive. The Grievor contended that the Respondent did not consider the expense as exceptional. Level I denied the grievance. The Commissioner considered the circumstances in which the expense was incurred and accepted the ERC recommendation to deny the grievance because the Grievor did not establish that the expense was incurred under exceptional circumstances or that the claim should be referred to TBS for approval as an exceptional expense.