Amendments to the National Defence Act (NDA) and the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces (QR&O)

Topic

Amendments to the National Defence Act (NDA) and the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Canadian Forces (QR&O)

Case number

• 2020-188 (F&R date: 2021-12-20)

Issue

The Committee has reviewed a number of grievances involving significant pay errors by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) leading to very painful recoveries from CAF members.  The Committee has long since concluded that the current provisions in the QR&O addressing debt recovery are overly restrictive and do not properly reflect the possibilities for debt deletion that are provided for in the Financial Administration Act and the Treasury Board guide on debt deletion. Both permit requests to be made to the Governor in Council for remission of debts when the collection of the debt is deemed to be “unreasonable or unjust or not in the public interest”. Additionally, the CAF would benefit from a transparent process that would consider all requests for debt remission on a case-by-case basis.

Recommendation

The Committee recommended that the Final Authority direct the CAF to seek:

• Amendments to the QR&O provisions dealing with recovery of overpayments to permit the suspension of the duty to recover debts to the Crown pending a decision in cases where the CAF has requested that the debt be remitted based on public interest; and
• Amendments to the NDA that would grant the Minister of National Defence or the Final Authority the authority to delete debts to the Crown in accordance with the Financial Administration Act where such deletion is merited.