Nvm, I'm wrong.
Since I'm in here now, I'll add something.
The whole idea of getting extra money for housing makes no sense to me. I can't imagine asking my employer for a raise because I don't have a nice house / nicer apartment. The market determines what I'm getting paid for the position I'm in, not what my bills are. Imagine me going to my firm as a staff accountant and instead of them saying "even though you're a staff accountant, we recognize you already have your designation and a ton of other experience than none of these 22-23 year olds have, so we're going to offer you a premium because those are things your staff accountant peers don't have" they said "since you're 32 and already own a house, we're going to offer you the market rate minus a housing differential because all of your peers still live with their parents.
PLD became a shit system because they didn't update it when the market changed, but it answered the problem of labour market rates being different across the country in a more logical way than a "housing differential" in that it effected everyone equally when they entered into a new labour market (new region) the same. I suppose over time the "housing differential" will truly only serve to increase the compensation level for the vast majority of the CAF who are the lower ends of the pay scales - whereas those on the higher end of the payscales are already more pot-committed to staying in the CAF - so I dunno, maybe it'll have a positive effect.
There are a dumber of differentiating factors:
1. CAF members cannot negotiate pay And are legally prohibited from doing so.
2. CAF orders members to relocate to certain places, irrespective of local housing markets at origin or destination.
3. CAF does not pay overtime and makes it tough to hold a second job, limiting members’ ability to supplement their base income. Deployments cannot be counted on for this.
4. CAF relocations can make it difficult for members’ spouses to hold down good jobs or achieve career growth (though less so for the navy).
5. A Cpl in Ottawa or Esquimault makes the same salary as a Cpl in Greenwood or Shilo. In some places, junior soldiers cannot afford reasonable housing on base pay.
6. CAF has gotten more and more out of providing subsidized housing directly to troops.
7. CAF equips members will skills and experiences that sets the better members up for finding other careers elsewhere.
If a private business were to fail to recruit and retain, the consequences are simply that that business may not be competitive and would fail.
Conversely, if CAF fails to recruit and retain, that comes at the immediate expense of Canada’s ability to generate combat capable forces to defend the national interest and to contribute to coalition forces. Therefore, the recruiting and, more importantly, retention of trained troops for CAF is a national security imperative. If the inability of junior troops to afford a decent quality of housing in some markets is enough of a dissatisfier to hurt retention, then CAF (and Treasury Board) can either ignore it and eat the loss, or can have something in place to mitigate it. They’ve chosen the latter. CFHD as newly constructed seems reasonable (although the 7 years thing is an issue), though for some the transition from PLD to CFHD will suck. Still, the overall notion of helping to offset higher costs of living, on a regional and means tested basis, is reasonable.
