You should go and talk to minister Fortier himself or his executive assistant who was also at the meeting. We provided him with a lot more information showing that there is a serious problem. Also, a month ago, I met with Mr. Nantel who was also with us at that meeting. He told me there had been no improvement, that employees still are subject to delays in payment, which is extremely unfortunate. In a society such as ours, with a government as structured as ours and which has all the required processes in place, it is incredible that we cannot manage to give employees their pay cheque in time.
Madam Chair, I would like to have another meeting with those witnesses here today in September or October in order for them to provide us with figures and a progress report.
Another issue that was raised at this meeting is that of the compensation advisors. The government hires employees to become compensation advisors through competitions, etc. Then they are trained, which takes quite some time. We give them training to enable them to do the work. The next thing you know — minister Fortier said so himself — these people take a position elsewhere in the public service because the salary of a compensation advisor is less than that of other positions.
We are not talking here about secondments but about people who want to be transferred. This means that those employees who are supposed to ensure that pay cheques get issued on time move elsewhere. So we have unfilled positions and we must again train other people to fill them. We find ourselves in that situation after having spent so much time training these employees who leave.
I strongly suggest to you to consider whether the salaries paid to those people in those key positions should not be adjusted in order to make all that training they received useful. If there are so many transfers, maybe it is a sign of a problem. I do not know their hourly rate, but it seems to be something that needs a closer look.
I am not asking you for answers. I am simply outlining some potential solutions that have been proposed by employees, people in my riding who have met with Mr. Fortier. It so happens that I live close to them, which is fortunate. These are people working in Gatineau and Ottawa. I imagine that for someone who works elsewhere in Canada and encounters such a problem it would be rather difficult to get the information and to be able to talk to someone who can do something about the problem. We had that opportunity last March.
Madam Chair, I sincerely wish that something can be done along the lines that I suggest. I am not smarter than anyone else. These potential solutions were suggested to me by government employees, people who have this problem or have experienced it. We must find a solution once and for all and pay an adequate salary to those compensation advisors. New employees, term employees and even sometimes managers who change positions are penalized and must wait a long time for their pay cheques.
As I said, I am disappointed, but I am not asking you to shoulder all the blame. But you should be talking more to each other, because this is an issue that people raise with me all the time and for which solutions exist.
Thank you, Madam Chair.