Federal Court decision orders government to review soldier’s housing case

HALIFAX – A Federal Court judge in Halifax has ruled in favour of a Canadian soldier seeking a review of a decision regarding the sale of his home after the military forced him to move from Alberta in 2010.

Maj. Marcus Brauer is seeking to cover the $88,000 he lost on the sale and asked the court to order the federal government to review its decision to grant him only $15,000 in compensation.

In a written decision issued Friday, and forwarded to the Canadian Press by Brauer, Judge Richard Mosley quashed the government’s July 2012 decision and says Brauer should be fully awarded his legal costs.

In a court hearing last month, Brauer’s lawyer Daniel Wallace argued that housing prices in Bon Accord, Alta, dropped 23 per cent during the three years his client lived there, which is three percentage points above the 20 per cent threshold for a depressed market in the military’s relocation policy.

However, the Treasury Board Secretariat decided Brauer wasn’t living in a depressed market, arguing the municipality was part of the Edmonton market where housing prices had dropped just 2.9 per cent.

In his ruling Mosley said the decision to include Bon Accord as part of the greater Edmonton area in interpreting the relocation policy was not justified in light of the facts of the case.