Government Operations Committee on July 28th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

For the benefit of the committee, I remind committee members that we will be here as long as it takes. If you have questions, we will remain here until your questions have been asked and answers have been proffered.

I know, Mr. Whalen, you wanted an additional question

Mr. Richards, welcome to our committee. You have five minutes, please.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

In response to some of the other questions you received today, you were fairly clear that the advice that had been given to the minister by officials had been to proceed. It sounds like that was unreserved advice. But I'm curious; I'm struggling to understand it. I know that the PSAC had expressed some reservations. I have a copy of a memo from their website, I believe it is, on my BlackBerry. I'll just read briefly from it. They indicate, and this was on from April 5:

For some time now, and since the new pay system Phoenix was launched at the Public Works Pay Centre, we have been hearing from our members of numerous problems and concerns.

They go on to indicate that they're

...taking [those] concerns seriously and [they're] following up with the employer to see if they can slow down the implementation of the new system until errors can be corrected to avoid future problems. The PSAC has already communicated with management that they either need to add more staff at the pay centre or slow down the pace files are being transferred.

It sounds like there were certainly some concerns raised by PSAC. Were those concerns provided, in terms of advice to the minister that “We have received this from PSAC. There are some concerns here. Maybe this should be slowed down”? Was that ever communicated to the minister?

[Marie Lemay]

They were certainly received by staff. Maybe I'll turn to Gavin, who was there the whole time, but we certainly knew about these.

We assessed that with everything else that we had by way of complaints when we were looking at April, and our recommendation to the minister was to go ahead.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Sure, but wouldn't it have been something that was fairly important to communicate to the minister, when there are concerns in the public service union, that they were recommending that this be slowed down? Would it not be something you'd think the minister should be aware of and that should be taken into consideration in the advice given to the minister?

I really would have to ask again: was this not provided to the minister?

[Marie Lemay]

Do you have an answer, Gavin?

[Gavin Liddy, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

I don't recall, actually. I know we provided a briefing note to—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Could we ask that you get back to this committee to indicate whether the minister was informed of those concerns, and were they taken into account in the advice that the minister received? I think that's an important point.

[Marie Lemay]

I can tell you that we took them into consideration, and our advice was clear: to move.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Sure, but it's certainly something I think should have been communicated to the minister also, for her decision-making as well.

Did anyone ever flag to the minister the possibility that people could be in a situation of not getting paid? Was that ever brought to the minister's attention? Was it something that was given to her for consideration, that there was a possibility that people might not get paid?

[Marie Lemay]

There definitely was not, in those words, when I was there.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

No. I would wonder why not.

You were indicating earlier that there was a backlog that you said was unanticipated, but why would it have been unanticipated? Why would a large backlog like that not have been something that could have been anticipated, and why would that not have been communicated to the minister?

[Marie Lemay]

The backlog, again, are people who are getting paid, and these are adjustments and incrementals. In the past there were time delays between times of acting pay and overtime and payments. That is something that was in the system previously. If we're talking about those....

When I talk about not being paid, it's people in our category one, the 720 who came to us and said that they were not getting paid. Those are the ones who are very important to us and are a surprise that we really have to understand and get to the bottom of it. We have processes to make sure that we address and correct them so that they don't happen again.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

There's another area I want to ask about. On May 17 when the minister appeared before this committee, she indicated that there were only 77 outstanding files to resolve, and since then we've obviously heard that the number is far larger: about 80,000 affected cases. That was only a few weeks later, I guess; I would imagine that those 80,000 cases didn't just magically appear within those few weeks.

On top of that, even today we've heard that there are, I think, 500 more cases that have showed up.

Who told the minister that there were only 77 cases?

[Marie Lemay]

We did.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Was that, then, just completely incorrect information that the minister received at that time, or was it just incomplete information, or...?

[Marie Lemay]

It was the information we had at the time.

Do you want to add something, Gavin?

[Gavin Liddy]

Yes. Those were the complaints we had received. In our case, and the deputy has given some examples, before Phoenix there were lengthy delays in receiving backlog—acting pay, extra-duty pay, transfers, those types of things—and they were measured in weeks and weeks.

When we went live with Phoenix, the goal was to clear those up—every single case—within 20 working days, or four weeks. The 81,000 public servants are those who have exceeded the four weeks. There weren't complaints on those; those were files that we were not able to close out within the four-week service standard. That's why there's a difference in the number.

As the deputy also said, we were hearing often—from the union, members of Parliament, through the minister's office, and from other deputies—that there were problems. That's why we went with the live web form, because these weren't getting to us. We were getting some complaints, but our phone system wasn't able to handle the volume, and you probably heard in the press about the numerous people who phoned hundreds of times and weren't able to get through.

We wanted therefore to establish a different methodology. Even today we're at about 10,000 complaints. There are lots of public servants who haven't complained, and that was the difference between the two numbers. Those are the complaints we had heard and those were the numbers that were unresolved at the time we provided the number to the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Mr. Liddy.

Mr. Grewal, take five minutes, please.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. Lemay, for coming today.

A lot of the questions have focused on what went wrong. I think we can all agree that there was an issue with the rollout. That's a discussion for another time.

I think there are two discussions to be had here. The purpose of this committee meeting, for me, particularly, is to ensure that people get paid, because it's not right that people are working and are not being paid, especially when you hear the heartbreaking stories in the news recently, especially about students.

Not too long ago, I was a summer student, and I can only imagine the stress of not being paid through the summer. So I'm very pleased to see that priority number one includes students and new hires who may have their first jobs out of university and have to pay student debt and are living off credit cards. It's unacceptable that anybody is working and is not being paid. It's very unacceptable, in my humble opinion, for people to be incurring additional expenses because they're not being paid on time, whether that's credit card interest, missing loan payments, or mortgage payments.

Can you please talk about some of the solutions we've implemented, particularly how many more people we have hired to solve this problem so we can get people the money they rightfully deserve?

[Marie Lemay]

In Miramichi we hired 40 additional staff at the beginning of the year. We expect to have more than 115 soon in Gatineau, 50 in Winnipeg, 20 in Shawinigan, and 20 in Montreal. That is a significant number of people who are going to be coming to the table to help us get through the backlog.

We're also doing an education component, which is going to be extremely important in the change management aspect of the system. We've also created internally what we call an operations centre to make sure that we can get all the information and that we have a process that flows.

Like you, when we hear cases of people not being paid, I don't want that. The important thing for people who are not getting paid is that they get in touch with us, because we have processes to get them paycheques in a fairly short time, and if they need an emergency salary payment, they can get it in days. Nobody should go without money if they need it and they've worked for it.

In terms of students, if I can just pause, the way the system works, and the way it worked before Phoenix, is that you have to work for two weeks before you're entered into the system and get paid. When you join the public service and are on-boarded—all your information is in and everything is settled—on day one, it will take, if you're lucky, three or probably four weeks to get paid, no matter what. This has nothing to do with Phoenix. It was like that before.

The challenge for a student who is with us for 10 weeks or 12 weeks is that you start with four weeks, assuming that the person who hired you and on-boarded you put everything in. If you wait one week or two to on-board your student, you're now at six weeks. We'll have to pay very special attention to students, because they are so important to us. For the next wave of students we are trying to find a process that will alleviate that, because we have to make sure that they get that earlier.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

My second question is very much focused on the compensation mechanisms that will be implemented to help alleviate the pain that's been caused because of Phoenix, such as if somebody was late with a mortgage payment and there are interest charges, if somebody was late with a tuition payment, or if there are interest charges on credit card bills.

In my humble opinion, I think everybody should be in a neutral position, if not better. Nobody should be in a worse position because of a technicality or, in all honesty, a mistake. The blame game can go on for years, and there is a time and a place for that. I really am focused on the workers to ensure that they're put in a position that's equal to if not better than if this problem never occurred in the first place.

Can you please talk about what the department is looking into to ensure that people are compensated fairly?

[Marie Lemay]

I can tell you that we're very seized with these issues, and our colleagues at the Treasury Board are working with the unions and are developing a process. We don't have the details yet. As soon as we have them, we'll make them available. We're asking employees to keep whatever pieces of documentation they can and to keep track of what it is costing them.

There will be a process in place, and they will be made aware of how they can make a claim.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

I'm very glad to hear that. Even though people are so frustrated with the system, it gives them some reassurance that at the end of the day they will be able to get to a neutral position, if not better.

My last question focuses on the fact that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Grewal, if may I interject, I'm sorry—

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Mr. Chair is a fair guy, so I will defer to him.