Monsieur Ayoub.
Evidence of meeting #24 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was paid.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #24 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was paid.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Mr. Chairman, I'm going to share my time with Madame Ratansi, if I may.
Earlier you mentioned a timeframe of four weeks for the first pay to be received through the Phoenix system, which sounds like a long time to me.
Will that timeframe be reduced?
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I will share my opinion on that. Rosanna might want to add something after that.
Clearly, now it's immediate, although it was much longer before. It used to be six weeks, but now it's about three or four weeks.
I want to reiterate what I said earlier: implementing this system has highlighted defects that existed perhaps even before Phoenix. That is one such defect, in my opinion.
How can we make that period as short as possible? Even if it were reduced to two weeks, we'd have to be very careful. We need to take this opportunity to go even further with that information.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
What does your work plan include in the way of compensation for employees who've suffered these delays?
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
This issue has been raised and it's very important. My Treasury Board colleagues are talking to the unions to establish a process in that regard. There will be something, but we don't have any details. As soon as it's announced, employees will know. We're asking them to keep all supporting documentation as much as possible. We'll soon be able to explain what process they need to follow.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you.
I'd like to give the remainder of my time to Ms. Ratansi.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
I just have a couple of questions to clear my mind.
We have been hearing about the problems with Phoenix since the process was brought into play in 2009, under the Conservative government, and repeated suggestions and issues raised by the Public Service Commission and others about the system. Then the system did move forward, you tested it and the bugs, and $310 million was sunk into it. When Minister Foote said she was assured that Phoenix had been rigorously tested and the staff were well trained, if you had advised the minister not to implement phase two what would have been the consequences, what would have happened?
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It was strongly felt that the risk of people not getting paid or not properly paid outweighed the risk of actually moving to phase two. The risk was serious. The system was an old one. People were working on two systems. There was training and education needed and a learning curve was required for the new system. It's one of those processes wherein, once you have everybody on the same site and on the same system, you can actually reorganize the work, have it done by clusters, you can do the training in a different way. We we were able to start doing that afterward. It was a big risk not to do it.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
In hindsight, with these problems of the 750 people not getting paid and 80,000 employees not getting that extra bit, would you have given different advice to the minister?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
As I think I said earlier, I would have seen our moving to phase two, but I would have recommended that we prepare better the users of the system. I think the change management, and I'll say the educational component of the employees and managers...because it is a very different system to use. It changes your way of managing people, because you have to go in the system and do a click and an approve, and if you don't it sits there. It's not about a form that somebody else submits. There are a number of changes that are important that I think we underestimated. So I would have put more resources, more efforts, there. Also, I think I would have kept more compensation advisers for the transition to help until it stabilized, and then get back to the steady state.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
For a three-minute round, we go to Mr. Weir.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Deputy Minister Lemay, when you say that the problem was with the users of the system rather than the system itself, I wonder how much larger the problem would need to be for you to acknowledge that there was a problem with the actual system?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I don't believe I said the problem was with the users. If I did, what I meant was that the problem was with the users getting used to the system. I'm not blaming the users; I'm actually blaming us for not preparing properly the users of the system. I think we missed on this. That's not on the users; it's on us.
I have not said there are no problems with the software. I think there are issues on every component of the larger system. We the software issues come up, we have to address them. So all the components are....
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
We've touched on the fact that the PSAC recommended a delay in the implementation of Phoenix. Did anyone else recommend a delay in the implementation?
4:20 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
No. We had discussions with the Treasury Board Secretariat, all of those in the deputy community, and the Privy Council Office, the Department of Finance—
4:20 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
IBM recommended a delay in May 2015.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
And we did delay.
4:20 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
And we did delay as a result of their recommendation. We didn't think they were ready, frankly, and we asked them, what do you recommend we do about that? Can you put more resources on to keep the schedule or do you recommend a delay? And they said, we recommend a delay.
4:20 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
No.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Okay.
Now, we've talked about some of the costs of setting up these temporary pay centres. Mr. Grewal rightly pointed out that there will be costs of compensating employees who have incurred penalties as a result of not being paid.
Can you provide any kind of overall estimate of the total cost of this Phoenix boondoggle?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
At this point, we cannot provide the cost of the compensation.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Do you have any sense of the overall magnitude of what this is going to cost Canadian taxpayers, all told?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
What we have right now are the measures that we've taken, meaning the satellites and call centres. The measures we've taken right now are costing $15 to $20 million. We're in the process of looking at other things, so we'll soon be able to provide the additional costs. As soon as we have the other process in place, we'll be able to also have a sense of the magnitude.