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.
5:50 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I'm not sure. Brigitte, do you know why we ended up with that?
I know the decision early in the project was to divide it so we didn't do it all at once. We had an opportunity to keep the old pay system going at the first launch.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
There are people in my riding who are still missing $25,000 in pay from the Coast Guard. I receive tweets in the middle of these meetings all the time.
You still haven't answered. Who made the recommendation? Who designed the pilot to be so short as to obfuscate the very issues we're trying to identify in the pilot?
5:50 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Again, It's not trying to obfuscate. It's two different systems.
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
We'll try to allow a 45-second answer. Madam Lemay, it seems you want to chip in here.
5:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I don't think we'll be able to pin one person to this discussion. This is a project that had a lot of people involved in making decisions. The three pay period....
One of the big risks of the transformation was that 300,000 people would not get paid. In terms of the overtime.... The Coast Guard is a very specific group, and we're trying to pay a lot of attention to them because these are really serious issues. We're very aware of them. We're working very closely with DFO and the Coast Guard on this because it is important. They have a different type of work.
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Madam Lemay, I'm going to have to cut you off here because we've limited time. Suffice it to say the answer is you don't know.
5:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Of the three weeks, no.
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Liddy, I would like to continue along the same lines as Mr. Whalen.
I imagine you are well aware that one of the fundamental principles of our parliamentary democracy is ministerial responsibility.
There are two systems. First, there is ministerial responsibility in the Westminster tradition. Second is the responsibility of public servants. This is the main system used in the United States.
I think our system is better. We truly want ministers to be responsible for their decisions rather than attacking public service professionals.
You said that, in light of the Gartner report, you considered that it was not necessary to inform the minister. Do you not think that, having made that decision of your own accord, or at least with your advisors and Ms. Lemay, you made it difficult for the minister to exercise ministerial responsibility in the interest of all Canadians?
5:50 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We received a great deal of advice. We received three reports, including one from the Maplesoft Group, as well as a good many comments from departments and other clients. We actually received a great deal of advice about what we should do. Based on what all the partners and advisors advised us to do, we decided to go ahead with the project. We thought about it, but it is clear that ...
we didn't do some things that we should have done. There were some weaknesses and we've lived through those results, as have a large number of public service employees. For that, I apologize personally. It's deeply upsetting to them. I wish we could have done things differently, but that's in hindsight.
At the time, we felt we had made the right decision to move forward, taking into effect all of the advice. All of the advice found its way into a deck where we informed the minister of the decisions that we were making going forward.
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I understand. Thank you for making that statement.
In closing, whether the report was positive or negative, I think the minister should have seen so she could make an informed decision.
I will now give the floor to my colleague.
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I just want to get back to the backlog.
I recall that I think it was in July we were discussing the backlog and how 20,000 or 40,000 was a huge surprise. It caught everyone by surprise in your department.
Refresh my memory. Was it 40,000 that the department was not aware of, or you were aware of the 20,000, and then the other 20,000...? I recall asking how we did not possibly know.
5:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
There were 20,000 of backlog just at the last minute, and then there were 20,000 of transactions that were sent to us after, which were pre-Phoenix.
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
I recall your saying earlier, and we've seen it in your press announcements, that some of the outstanding backlog is from a year or two years ago, the more difficult ones.
How many of the outstanding ones are from the old system two years ago?
5:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Are you talking about from the 15,000 employees?
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Well, of the backlog as we understand it. I think you said there were about 15,000 left to clear.
5:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Of those, what I can—
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
5:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
What I can tell you is that the analysis we did is that of all of the transactions for the 82,000 employees—that seems like a number—82% of those were actually pre-Phoenix, so of the whole....
Am I answering your question?
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
No, not really, but I'll move on.
For the sake of argument, if we did not have a backlog and we entered Phoenix on day one clear, that someone had thought to inform you that there was this backlog, would we be in this position right now? How much of it is because of the outstanding backlog that you were not aware of?
5:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Well the backlog did contribute to it, but I would say that because we didn't have the capacity, the compensation advisers, we didn't have those to mitigate. We had to go out and hire. That, the learning curve, and the change management would be, for me, the three elements.
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
We saw in the Gartner report that clearly the training wasn't there and we didn't have a back-up plan.
Again, we saw that PSAC brought up issues in January, and we brought it up in committee in February and in March. Everything was rainbows and unicorns. In committee, with PSAC, it was a completely different idea of what the problems were, but we still went ahead with that.
If we knew we were short of these 700,000 bodies—and the numbers change depending on who you talk to on that side—and this was going to be a problem, why, again, did we go ahead?
5:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I joined on April 11, so right in the middle of the two—
5:55 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I know. I assume that you would have asked this question, though.