OTTAWA — Dozens of top-ranking military officers are still on the public payroll after retiring from their jobs with hefty pensions.
Documents released under Access to Information show senior brass in the army, navy and air force can collect both a pension and a salary by switching over to the reserves after retirement — a practice dubbed “double-dipping” by some critics.
Records released by the Department of National Defence list 207 senior officers ranked lieutenant-colonel or above presently serving as Class B service members of the Reserve Force. That group includes several brigadiers-general, navy captains and colonels retired from regular duty and now serving in the reserves.
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Brig-Gen. Christian Barabe, whose pending retirement from the regular forces was announced in a news release in January 2009, is among the top-ranked officers on the list.
DND spokesman Cmdr. Hubert Genest said a “small pool” of retirees with focused expertise are hired back on a short-term basis — usually for two years or less. The measure allows the Canadian Forces to better handle personnel expansion, the Afghanistan mission, a major security operation for the 2010 Winter Olympics and other special projects.
“All these pressures together, we have to have more people to bring it together,” Genest said.
But retired Col. Michel Drapeau believes the practice could be costly to taxpayers, since a retired brigadier-general who is eligible for a pension of about $110,000 annually would be in line for a reservist’s pay of about $120,000 on top of that.
Regular force members are entitled to a partial pension after 20 years of service and full pension after 27.
Drapeau said the practice also prevents fresh, younger blood from rising up the ranks.
“Someone along the line could have moved up,” he said. “The perception is, we’re paying. Somebody’s getting double pay from a social perspective basis.”
Drapeau said the policy is a good one to have on the books for use in exceptional cases, but believes it is being used too often.
He has heard rumblings from lower-ranking military members who say the practice flies in the face of the CF’s goal of rejuvenating its work force.
“In this case, the state has given these individuals a good pension. I’m not saying they haven’t earned it, but it’s a good pension,” he said.
“You cannot convince me by having two sources of income to one individual, that you are not depriving someone of it.”
kathleen.harris@sunmedia.ca
