Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary seems to suggest that the emergency pay system is simple and working properly, which is clearly not the case. We have instances of federal public servants losing their homes, because they cannot make mortgage payments. One of the fundamental problems is that emergency pay is essentially a loan that the employee has to pay back. In fact, what we should be doing is writing cheques and crediting them against the pay that employees are owed rather than expecting them to return the money later on.
On the whole issue of a hotline for MPs' offices, I think it is a very important point. Constituents come to our constituency offices expecting service, and if they need help with immigration or EI, there is usually a number our staff can call to help resolve the problem. There is no such number for the Phoenix pay system, which is something I proposed eight months ago and would like to see.