Madam Speaker, I feel like I keep hearing the same speeches and the same answers.
In the beginning, the government chose to do the necessary trial runs before moving forward. In my riding, hundreds of public servants and retirees were victims of the Phoenix pay system and still are. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the work of Mario Lavigne, who came to our office when the Phoenix troubles began to give us a petition signed by hundreds of people affected by this fiasco. These people are calling on this government to do something about it.
More than half the public service is either being overpaid or not being paid enough. Two hundred and sixty-five thousand is not just a number, it is human beings and families living under tremendous stress every day.
This burden is not theirs to bear, it is the government's. It is not right that people are losing their homes and struggling to feed their family and pay their bills. We cannot be callous about this. It is imperative that we resolve this situation.