Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The public service has about 270,000 employees and several thousand executives. It is a massive organization, the biggest employer in Canada. Yes, problems are natural because of the huge numbers involved. Projects do fail.
Coming to Phoenix, fundamentally we can relate two issues that caused this problem, and this was executed by three people. First, the project went ahead with just $155 million, against the requirement of $274 million. When you start a project this way, there is no way the project can come out as a success. Second, hundreds of compensation advisers were fired before the new system was fully functional and implemented.
These are the two fundamental reasons, I believe, that led to the massive failure of this project. How many people were responsible? Three, maybe four, and maybe an additional deputy minister.
If this project failed basically due to three executives, and maybe one more, and due to two fundamental reasons, is it fair to tar the entire public service in the same manner?