Thank you very much, and thank you, Minister and all those with you here today.
Minister, you have a very busy portfolio, I have to say. You've been in this portfolio for, I think, about a year and a half now, and there is lots going on.
You did talk in your opening statement—and I wanted to go to that first—about the Phoenix pay backlog. It seemed to me that you have, I think you said, about $25 million as part of these estimates to work on this.
I'll tell you what concerns me. It's an article I saw just a couple of days ago. It was reported on CBC that there was a document “prepared in August 2018 for a deputy minister in Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) ahead of a meeting with the Treasury Board official in charge of helping find a system to replace Phoenix.” It says, “As the federal government forges ahead to replace the Phoenix payroll system, internal documents obtained by CBC News through access to information suggest clearing the backlog could take another three to five years,” and then it goes on to say that it actually “could take 10 or more years for the system to achieve 'overall stability'.”
It's one thing to be waiting 10 years for the rehabilitation of one of our Parliament Buildings, but this Phoenix estimate seems way out of line. Don't you agree? I mean, three to five years.... Many of these employees have suffered enough, and I'm sure you've heard from them, just as I have. It has to be very discouraging to see that report. What are your thoughts on that?