EvanL
05-04-2004, 03:20 PM
Tue, May 4, 2004
The backlog keeps growing ... and growing
By Greg Weston -- Sun Ottawa Bureau
For a fourth consecutive banner year, the military complaints department for unhappy Canadian soldiers continues to be its own greatest cause of complaint.
Those topping the gripe list include soldiers waiting years for their concerns to be heard, and Canadian taxpayers who were stiffed for $6.7 million last year -- for what should be called Operation Deaf Ear.
The Liberal government invented the Canadian Forces Grievance Board in 1999 to provide soldiers (in theory) with fair and speedy reviews of employment-related disputes.
By the time it formally began shuffling paper in 2000, the board had inherited a mountainous backlog of unresolved cases from the previous decade.
Four years later, of the 295 grievance cases that were actually resolved by the end of 2003, fully 225 of those complaints were older than the board.
After burning through almost $30 million for all-new furniture and matching bureaucrats, the board managed the remarkable feat of helping to turn the mountainous backlog of cases into a slightly larger one.
In fairness, much of the grievance bottleneck is located in that endless bureaucratic maze known as National Defence headquarters.
It is there that a soldier's urgent complaint travels from in-basket to out-basket to the grievance board and back to the headquarters' in-basket, where it may sit for years.
As a result, of the 690 grievances that have landed on the board's desk since it opened for business in 2000, almost 400 are still stuck somewhere in the system.
It's getting worse.
The board's latest annual report indicates that while it issued rulings in 127 cases last year, it had 148 new ones come through the door. At the same time, the year ended with another 125 cases still sitting in the in-basket at National Defence headquarters, waiting for a final decision from the brass.
All of this works out to no more than about $50,000 per complaint -- an extraordinary bargain, indeed, especially considering the magnitude and complexity of the issues to be resolved.
The annual report, for instance, describes 10 sample cases chosen according to their "relevancy."
One case was as follows: "Upon returning from active duty, the grievor refused to pay dues to the Officers' Mess (no, we're not making this up).
"The grievor pointed out that he did not want to frequent an establishment where people drank and smoked ... On two occasions, he had started smoking again when he had been required to attend the mess, and he did not want to subsidize the consumption of alcohol."
The board recommended to the chief of defence staff that the complaint be rejected.
Another of the sample cases -- remember, these are each costing an average of about $50,000 to resolve -- involved someone who tried to ban smoking in the mess.
Another was a pay dispute over $600 a month.
Still another involved a soldier who had enjoyed a free university education in return for mandatory military service which, after graduation, he decided he would rather not do.
The board's official press release for its annual report calls last year "a turning point" for the grievance agency.
"Building upon the improvements that were made in the previous year, the board continued to fine-tune its operations..."
Vroom. Vroom.
The backlog keeps growing ... and growing
By Greg Weston -- Sun Ottawa Bureau
For a fourth consecutive banner year, the military complaints department for unhappy Canadian soldiers continues to be its own greatest cause of complaint.
Those topping the gripe list include soldiers waiting years for their concerns to be heard, and Canadian taxpayers who were stiffed for $6.7 million last year -- for what should be called Operation Deaf Ear.
The Liberal government invented the Canadian Forces Grievance Board in 1999 to provide soldiers (in theory) with fair and speedy reviews of employment-related disputes.
By the time it formally began shuffling paper in 2000, the board had inherited a mountainous backlog of unresolved cases from the previous decade.
Four years later, of the 295 grievance cases that were actually resolved by the end of 2003, fully 225 of those complaints were older than the board.
After burning through almost $30 million for all-new furniture and matching bureaucrats, the board managed the remarkable feat of helping to turn the mountainous backlog of cases into a slightly larger one.
In fairness, much of the grievance bottleneck is located in that endless bureaucratic maze known as National Defence headquarters.
It is there that a soldier's urgent complaint travels from in-basket to out-basket to the grievance board and back to the headquarters' in-basket, where it may sit for years.
As a result, of the 690 grievances that have landed on the board's desk since it opened for business in 2000, almost 400 are still stuck somewhere in the system.
It's getting worse.
The board's latest annual report indicates that while it issued rulings in 127 cases last year, it had 148 new ones come through the door. At the same time, the year ended with another 125 cases still sitting in the in-basket at National Defence headquarters, waiting for a final decision from the brass.
All of this works out to no more than about $50,000 per complaint -- an extraordinary bargain, indeed, especially considering the magnitude and complexity of the issues to be resolved.
The annual report, for instance, describes 10 sample cases chosen according to their "relevancy."
One case was as follows: "Upon returning from active duty, the grievor refused to pay dues to the Officers' Mess (no, we're not making this up).
"The grievor pointed out that he did not want to frequent an establishment where people drank and smoked ... On two occasions, he had started smoking again when he had been required to attend the mess, and he did not want to subsidize the consumption of alcohol."
The board recommended to the chief of defence staff that the complaint be rejected.
Another of the sample cases -- remember, these are each costing an average of about $50,000 to resolve -- involved someone who tried to ban smoking in the mess.
Another was a pay dispute over $600 a month.
Still another involved a soldier who had enjoyed a free university education in return for mandatory military service which, after graduation, he decided he would rather not do.
The board's official press release for its annual report calls last year "a turning point" for the grievance agency.
"Building upon the improvements that were made in the previous year, the board continued to fine-tune its operations..."
Vroom. Vroom.