Passed-over firefighter alleged a rigged promotion. The board said no
A long-serving federal firefighter who kept getting passed over for promotion argued his employer had engineered a senior posting for a hand-picked favourite by watering down the qualifications. A labour board saw it differently, and his complaint went nowhere.
In a decision dated May 12, 2026, Caroline Engmann of the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board dismissed an abuse-of-authority complaint brought by a platoon chief at a Department of National Defence firehall in Halifax, who challenged how a colleague was promoted ahead of him to a senior platoon chief role.
A career that stalled in a pool of one
The complainant, a civilian firefighter with more than 18 years of service, worked as a platoon chief classified at the FR-03 level at the Halifax firehall. He had qualified to act in the more senior FR-04 role years earlier and had filled it on both short- and long-term bases. He alleged the department abused its authority both in choosing a non-advertised process to promote a colleague and in how it applied merit.
According to the complainant, the qualifications listed for the senior platoon chief job had been watered down to fit a preselected candidate, and the assessment board harboured a reasonable apprehension of bias against him. He said he was the only candidate left from a 2019 prequalified pool who had never been promoted, and that letting the appointee act in the role for a year before confirming him was further evidence of favouritism.
He also argued the employer's stated reasons were false. No advertised process was ever run to fill the second vacancy, he said, and there was no genuine urgency because the appointee had already been acting in the position for more than a year. He told the board he was not seeking to revoke the appointment, only a declaration that the department had abused its authority.
Why the department picked a non-advertised process
The fire chief, who served as the sub-delegated hiring manager, testified that the firehall was under strain. Half of its operational officer complement was unstaffed on an indeterminate basis, fuelling morale problems, burnout, and heavy overtime. He sought approval to staff several vacant officer positions but was cleared for only two FR-04 roles, which he decided to fill through one non-advertised and one advertised process.
The non-advertised route was the expedient way to secure stable leadership on a platoon where the appointee had already been acting long-term, the board found. Engmann noted that the public service framework does not treat acting work as a permanent fix. "It is clear from the general scheme of the PSEA that acting appointments are not to be used as staffing vehicles on a long-term basis," she wrote, and she was satisfied a pressing operational need supported the choice.
On merit, the board found the appointee met every essential qualification for the job. The complainant had initially argued the appointee lacked a fire officer level 2 certification but acknowledged during cross-examination that he had earned it. His insistence that the appointment not be revoked, the board observed, undercut his own claim that it had not been based on merit.
No bias, and a note on prequalified pools
The board found no reasonable apprehension of bias. Applying the test of whether a reasonably informed bystander would perceive bias, Engmann reviewed the workplace correspondence the complainant relied on and concluded none of it crossed that threshold. An earlier staffing complaint had been resolved through confidential minutes of settlement and was not relevant to the analysis.
Nor was there personal favouritism. Acting in a position for an extended period does not by itself amount to favouritism, the board held, and there was no evidence of a personal relationship between the hiring manager and the appointee. The complaint was dismissed.
Engmann closed with sympathy for the complainant's frustration and a recommendation directed at delegated managers. Prequalified pools, she noted, create legitimate expectations for the candidates in them. "To avoid complaints of this nature, delegated managers must ensure that there is transparency around the creation and use of prequalified pools," she wrote.
See Bourgoin v. Deputy Head (Department of National Defence), 2026 FPSLREB 57
