Government Operations Committee on Sept. 19th, 2016

[Gavin Liddy]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. McCauley, perhaps in our second hour you can get back to that with Mr. Liddy, but we're past the five minutes.

Now we'll go to Mr. Ayoub for five minutes, please.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Minister, for having come before us again today. It is always a pleasure to meet with you.

I am torn between shame and embarrassment when I see some of my colleagues across the way rending their garments over this situation. We met last July 28 to discuss this, and the committee examined urgent cases. At that time, we got some answers.

And yet, I see today that people are trying to assign blame rather than trying to solve the problem. Very little time is being devoted to the problems of those who are affected by this situation on a daily basis. I see from the reports that the situation is improving. In spite of some serious issues, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We have talked at length about the origin of some of these problems. We can't both blame the person who is correcting the situation and ask them to change the system. You are correcting the situation.

I would like you to tell me a bit more about the current situation regarding priority number one. Some people have said that we were distorting information regarding people who never received any paycheques. However, corrective measures are being applied.

So that we may inform the population on this matter, could you tell us a bit more about the measures the department is taking to resolve this?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Every time I hear that there's a public service employee who has performed their job and who has not gotten paid, it's really disturbing for me, because nobody, as I have said repeatedly, should not get paid for work performed.

This is why, when we started to hear about people not getting paid, we made sure that every department knew and understood how important it was to make their employees aware of the opportunity to avail themselves of emergency pay, so that we would not have individuals out there unable to pay their mortgage, or whatever they need their paycheques for. When we heard about individuals who weren't getting paid, that was a concern for us, because we knew that every department had the ability to write emergency cheques, so that no one should have to go without pay.

Then, when we were hearing that some departments were actually taking the money back in one fell swoop, we said that's not right either. You need to be able to give people a pay system in order to pay the money back...the additional money that they got. With the emergency pay, it was really important for us to make sure that public servants who worked so hard did in fact get cheques. We wanted to make sure that—

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Minister, I'd like some information: how long does it take to issue an emergency paycheque? Are we talking about a week, or a few days?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

No, departments can turn a cheque around in 24 to 48 hours. In our department, we turn them around in 24 hours.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

We call that “emergency pay”. There is no reason for an employee to wait longer than 24 or 48 hours for temporary compensation. That is when we are agreed that it is an emergency and that a person has to be paid a certain way, but we are working to find long-term solutions.

I would like to ask you an important question. We have talked about IBM, and an audit, and eventually doing a status report on the situation. Will IBM be implementing any other systems in the near future in your department? Are any measures being taken to ensure that such problems do not reoccur?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

A very brief answer, if that's possible.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Do we have IBM—

[Marie Lemay]

I'm not sure if it's IBM.

There are programs, but I am not sure whether the contractor concerned is IBM or another company.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I may come back to that during the next hour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Blaney, you have five minutes.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Madam Minister, we have only five minutes.

I was always told that we should reward success, not failure. I am disappointed this afternoon that, as the leader of the department who is in charge of this big mess—60,000 Canadian families are not being paid or are still trying to catch up with their current expenses—that you don't care that they get a bonus for this mess. I'm not at ease with this and I think many Canadians are not at ease with having bonuses and rewarding a mess like this.

What are the different steps you will take until October 31 to eliminate that backlog, since you told us and we were told as early as six months ago that everything was fine?

I would also like to hear how you will handle.... There are workers who got money, sent some back, got more money. How will we deal with the T4 mess? How can you anticipate, when those people will have to pay their income tax.... Can you reassure us, at least, for those who are waiting for their money, or those who have gotten too much or not enough, that they won't have illegal earnings, or pay too much tax, and have to go through another nightmare when tax time comes in March of next year?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Let me start by acknowledging, as I have time and time again, that it is totally unacceptable for the individuals who are in this backlog to continue to be in that backlog. That's why we have implemented the measures that we have to deal with that, because again, no one should go without pay for work performed.

There are 300,000 public service employees getting paid every two weeks. Through Phoenix, we have the regular payroll system working. Will there be challenges? There will always be challenges. I said that to you at the outset. You will never have a payroll system of this magnitude where you won't face challenges, but nothing of the magnitude we're experiencing now, and that's why we have taken all the measures that we've taken: to deal with the issues we're dealing with until we get to a steady state, whatever that steady state will be.

From my perspective, it's going to be really important that we do everything we can to make sure there are no further hardships experienced by public service employees as a result of Phoenix. That's why Treasury Board has put in place a process to help those employees and to respond positively to those employees who come forward suggesting that they've incurred additional interest charges or that they've had other problems as a result of Phoenix.

We have put a lot of measures in place. We will do whatever we have to do to fix the system. Yes, I'm the minister responsible and I take this personally. It is really important from my perspective that employees out there who work so hard get compensated for the work performed.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I want to believe that this mess will be resolved. I believe that for those who are impacted, this is great news, but still, it's been six months on the go and the disaster has just gotten bigger and bigger. I hope that all colleagues around this table now will support this motion to ask the minister to come and give us an update.

Minister, would you be ready to come and give us an update by or around October 31, reassure us on the current status, and tell us that those civil servants will be and are being dealt with and will be eliminated from that backlog?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Absolutely, I will.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

This is what Canadians want to hear. They want to see us working to make sure we are solving those issues. They don't want to see us throwing mud, but once again, Minister, I must tell you that I am disappointed that we have gotten into such a big mess, because this is impacting many families. Please be prepared when you come back to ensure what the aftermath is, because there are people who are being paid one way and they will have to reimburse.... We really want to understand so that they are not double....

We don't want people to have to live through two nightmares instead of one.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

If you wish, Minister.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Well, there's no one around this table who wants to see this issue resolved more than I do. We are committed to doing just that, which is precisely why we're talking all the measures we are, in spite of the situation in which we found ourselves. We have put that behind us.

What we're doing is working very closely with the unions, which are are working with us, and they've identified people to work with us in our pay centres. We're working within the department. Again, we're doing everything we possibly can. We're working with Treasury Board to make sure for any employees who suffer hardships that we're able to deal with those for them.

A lot of measures are being taken, but the bottom line here is that we have to get the system in place that works. It's a huge payroll system for the country, and we want to make sure that measures are put in place to respond positively to them, so that at the end of the day we end up with employees who are getting paid for work performed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Minister.

Madam Shanahan, please, for five minutes.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Minister, for being here with us today.

I'd like to explore just a bit the kinds of cases we're talking about. I don't want to take up the whole time with that because we can talk about it more in the second hour, but just to give us an idea, who are the people we're talking about? What kinds of cases are there? I have a bit of a background in payroll and tax, and I know that no two cases are the same.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Well, initially, one of the issues brought to my attention was that students weren't getting paid. I questioned that, knowing that students don't have savings accounts, so how is it possible that we can't pay our students when they come to work with us? Why would we not be able to do that? It was pointed out to me that it's the way it's always been, that students never did get paid up front, and that it sometimes took the two months that students worked during the summer before they got paid, which for me is totally unacceptable.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Even before Phoenix.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Yes.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

It predated Phoenix.