Madam Speaker, on November 3, I rose in the House to ask a question regarding the broken Phoenix system. Once again, the Liberals will be breaking their promises to fix this fiasco. The government announced that it would not be able to honour the new collective agreement implementation dates for more than 100,000 public servants. I think that now is the time for the government to step up and find a solution to the disastrous Phoenix system.
This new pay system was meant to modernize the previous1970s-era system. The government claimed that it could save $688 million with this new system, but in reality, the system has cost taxpayers half a billion dollars so far, and it simply does not work.
The government wanted to save taxpayers money, but the complete opposite is happening. Employees are either not receiving their full pay or are being paid too much and live in fear of having to file an incorrect income tax return thanks to the mismanagement of the pay system. Many federal public servants will have to repay the federal government large amounts of money.
Ultimately, what happened was that the government wanted to save money at any cost, without considering the risks, and now here we are.
At a press conference, the President of the Treasury Board was quick to lay the blame on the Conservatives, but it was this Liberal government that gave the green light to launch Phoenix, without testing it, and it was this government that ignored the warnings from our party and the unions. Perhaps it is time that the government listened to the experts.
This fiasco has been going on for a year and a half now, and once again, the government is not being transparent. Members of unions like the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represent over 50,000 federal employees, are frustrated by the countless problems they have had to deal with since the federal government implemented Phoenix. They believe, and rightly so, that the government needs to be more honest with the employees affected by the failures of the pay system.
More than 265,000 federal employees are having pay problems. The Liberals need to understand that more than 50% of our public servants are affected, and that is huge. The nightmare is not over for the victims of the Phoenix pay system.
As I mentioned in my question, the government promised to honour the collective agreement of more than 100,000 public servants. Once again, the Treasury Board has gone back on its word. As a result, wage increases and retroactive payments, for example, will not be paid as set out in these collective agreements.
This is a tragic story. There are people suffering from chronic stress and anxiety, and who wonder every day when or whether they will be paid. This is a travesty. How can the government remain unmoved by this situation? This story makes the headlines almost every day. The NDP has brought it up over and over again, the unions and public servants have been sounding the alarm for a long time, but the government is still turning a deaf ear. The government must act now to put an end to this disaster. We cannot allow our fellow citizens to go without income or benefits. Even worse, as if that were not bad enough, the Auditor General revealed in his most recent report that it will take years to fix this fiasco.
When will the government finally take steps to set up a pay system that works? I do not think that is too much to ask.