Evidence of meeting #62 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 employees.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
I wanted to ask you to take us through the implementation process from the time that this project or the decision to go forward was implemented. If you can't answer me in 30 seconds, I will have to let somebody else ask you the question.
5:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It might be a little hard to do in 30 seconds. Are you referring to 2009 when the project was approved?
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Yes. You were probably not there, but we need to know some timelines so that we understand the complexity and what the decision-making problems were.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Of course, now the entire 30 seconds has been taken up with the question.
We'll move to Mr. Clarke, for five minutes, please.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Lemay, I'm going to continue with you.
Why did you wait more than six months after the Phoenix pay system was installed to make training mandatory for managers and employees responsible for overseeing problems related to the system?
5:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
The training was actually available before the transition. As I said earlier, it's part of the change management component. The training was available, but for reasons specific to each department, employees and managers didn't take the training.
We are pleased to report that, right now, nearly 90% of managers and almost 87% of employees at Public Services and Procurement Canada have taken the training. It's important training. It doesn't take long, and it's available on the Canada School of Public Service website.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Given the intense nature of the problems stemming from the Phoenix pay system, do you not think the training should be mandatory?
5:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Should we make the training mandatory? As I told you, we haven't made it mandatory, but we have strongly encouraged people to take it, and we are at a 90% participation rate. I'm not sure that the real issue is whether the training should be mandatory or not, but people should certainly take it.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I asked the minister a question that she couldn't answer. She explained that it wasn't necessarily possible to differentiate between new and old cases since they are transaction-based.
I thought about the fact that it was possible to determine that, on July 5, there were 82,000 unresolved cases. Despite all the transactions and complexities of the old and new cases, you are still able to say that 15,000 of the original 80,000 or so remain outstanding.
I'm curious, then, as to why you aren't able to tell us how many new cases, if any, are not included in the 82,000.
5:20 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I thought the minister had given you an answer. I want to make sure I give you the right information.
First, the backlog in question had 82,000 cases. Of that number, 15,000 are still outstanding.
Every single day, the system handles incoming and outgoing transactions. In May, we were able to process about 40,000 transactions. Since we didn't have the capacity to process all the transactions, we were processing fewer than were coming in, which led to the backlog. That's what the minister explained. It's equivalent to about two months of extra work as compared with our current service levels. Today, we have the capacity to process approximately 100,000 transactions per month, and that explains the 200,000 transactions the minister talked about. We have slightly more than 200,000 transactions over and above our current service levels.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
That sounds rather ambiguous to me. As I told you, it was possible to determine that exactly 82,000 employees were affected by the Phoenix pay system problems. I realize that all sorts of other pay- and system-related problems exist. That said, are there any new cases directly linked to the Phoenix pay system?
5:25 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you for pressing the issue. It's important to point out that they aren't necessarily pay problems. They are transactions that take longer to process. As a result, pay cases are processed at a slower rate. They aren't necessarily problems. It has to do with the volume of transactions we're processing.
We've put a system in place. If someone isn't paid for whatever reason, it's crucial that we know about it. The employee has to notify their department and needs to receive an emergency payment, or they can fill out the form on our website, in which case, we make sure they receive the necessary payments if they weren't paid at all.
At the pay centre, the rate at which transactions are being processed has slowed. They are taking longer to process.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I see. Thank you.
It seems that the public service management committee meets from time to time, and that's a very good thing.
Do you recall the date that the committee met and decided to deploy the Phoenix pay system?
5:25 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I'm going to ask Mr. Liddy to answer that. I'm aware of the situation, but I wasn't on the job at that time.
5:25 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It was on January 31, 2016.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Very good. Thank you. The date was January 31, 2016, then.
Had any special bonuses been planned for—
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
All right. Hopefully, I'll have the chance to come back to it.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Public Services and Procurement Canada requested authorization to reinvest $5 million in revenues from the sale or transfer of real property. I'd like to know where the money from the sale or transfer of real property came from and how you plan to invest it.
5:25 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I'm going to ask Mr. Muldoon to answer that, if you don't mind.
5:25 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Administration, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Thank you very much for your question.
The way that the funding revolves when we sell or dispose of an asset is that we will bring the proceeds of the sale of that asset back into the department for future investment in our capital programming. What you're seeing here in our estimates for that $5 million item is that we have now entered into the first phase of a disposal of a building. I believe it was a parking garage. This is the bringing back to the department the first segment of two segments of instalments for that. The way it works is that once it's concluded its sale, we'll bring the rest of the money in through a supplementary estimate some year in the future when that asset is actually successfully sold.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Similarly, you received $54.5 million through the supplementary estimates to maintain and upgrade federal infrastructure assets. I'd like to know which crown-owned buildings have benefited from this investment in maintenance. Do you think that the amounts invested were sufficient or that more funding will be necessary going forward?