Deployments
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A deployment is a “transfer of a person from one position to another”. A deployment is not an appointment, it does not constitute a promotion or change a person’s period of employment from a specified term to indeterminate. Subsection 51(4) of the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA) states that:
A deployment to or within an organization named in Schedule I or IV to the Financial Administration Act shall be made in the manner directed by the Treasury Board and in accordance with any regulations of the Treasury Board.
Furthermore, subsection 51(5) of the PSEA specifies that:
The deployment of a person may not
- (a) constitute a promotion, within the meaning of the Definition of Promotion Regulations of the Treasury Board, in the case of an organization named in Schedule I or IV to the Financial Administration Act, or as determined by the separate agency, in the case of a separate agency to which the Commission has the exclusive authority to make appointments; or
- (b) change a person’s period of employment from a specified term to indeterminate.
Note: Organizations listed in schedules I and IV of the Financial Administration Act make up the core public administration and have the Treasury Board as their Employer.
Authority
Subsection 51(1) of the PSEA gives Deputy Heads the authority to deploy employees to or within the Deputy Head’s organization. Deputy Heads are accountable for deployment decisions in their organization.
Eligibility
The consent of an employee is required in order to deploy, unless an agreement to being deployed is a condition of employment of the employee’s current position, or the Deputy Head of the organization in which the person is employed finds, after investigation, that the person has harassed another person in the course of their employment and the deployment is made within the same organization (51(6)(b) of the PSEA).
Pursuant to Section 51(2) of the PSEA, employees from a separate agency as defined in Schedule V of the Financial Administration Act (not subject to the PSEA) can be deployed into the core public administration, granted that the Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC) has reviewed the staffing program of this separate agency, at the agency’s request, and has approved the agency for deployment purposes. The PSC’s Reference List identifies all of the federal public service organisations and specifies whether their employees can be deployed to departments and agencies subject to the PSEA for their appointments, including separate agencies whose appointments are made exclusively under the authority of the PSC and separate agencies whose deployments are authorized by their enabling legislation.
Conditions
The deployment’s effective date should not be a retroactive date, even if the employee is already on assignment or secondment in the position in which they are to be deployed. Furthermore, a deployment may occur just prior to the ending of an employee’s specified term contract. A term employee who has been deployed could immediately have an extension to their period of term employment; the Deputy Head has the flexibility to extend the period of term employment following the deployment.
Deputy Heads or their delegates are responsible for managing non-imperative deployments. The same provisions governing a non-imperative appointment are applied to deployments. The employee has to meet the language requirements of the position within the exclusion period, even if they are deployed on a non-imperative basis to another bilingual position with the same or lower linguistic profile. If the employee is deployed to a position with a higher linguistic profile, a new exclusion period begins on the date of the deployment.
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