Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Ferguson, thank you for the work you and all of your team are doing to allow us politicians to better understand the reasons behind the issues, to identify the problems, and to help solve them.
I carefully read all of your reports, including what we here call chapter zero: the message from the Auditor General. I must admit that I have an internal perspective, since, as I already told you, I spent a number of years in the federal public service. I know full well that all the public service employees, or the vast majority of them, work very hard every day to ensure that the programs and activities they are tasked with are implemented. Nobody seeks to intentionally create a fundamental problem like the Phoenix pay system.
Still today, my thoughts are with the public servants affected by the major problems associated with Phoenix. For some, these financial problems have caused all sorts of other family problems. My thoughts are with them.
Auditor General, in your report and your message, you talk about a culture of obedience that could be the source of Phoenix's problems. I'm scratching my head, and I'm trying to understand the situation correctly. Is it possible that all of the adverse conditions came together? In fact, we had a system that was more than 40 years old. I don't want to play politics, but I must say that we also had a strategy aimed at reducing government spending, meaning that this project was supposed to bring about substantial savings. Many public servants and advisors were going to retire. Some of them had to retire due to cuts that had to be made. Services needed to be centralized in Miramichi, and almost all of the employees were new hires.
I think that there is obviously a link to the culture of obedience, but we have to take all the other factors into account. Instead of talking about this culture, should we not be talking about a perfect storm of adverse conditions?