Thank you, Madam Chair.
With regard to the Phoenix fiasco, there are new excuses every month. If half the energy and time spent on blaming the previous government had been spent on finding practical solutions quickly, perhaps we would not still be talking about this today.
I would like to share with my fellow committee members a conclusion from an internal report by S.i. Systems, which was submitted to Public Services and Procurement Canada, or PSPC, in January 2016. It is similar to the Gartner report, which you commissioned in February, Mr. Brison. The internal report submitted to the department stated that all the necessary employees were working in Miramichi and in other compensation sectors. The real problem, it said, was the backlog of cases that you would not acknowledge until March and April.
Now that we have a good idea of the scope of the problem, we know that the backlog is part of it. For several months, your government has come up with a new excuse, saying that the previous Conservative government laid off 700 people. Moreover, as I said yesterday—and I would like Ms. Shanahan to hear this—, can you confirm, Mr. Brison, with due respect for your Liberal colleagues, that your government laid off 250 compensation experts from February to April 2016?