Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that what is happening with Phoenix and in all these particular cases where federal civil servants are being put in a really hard spot, and in some cases being asked to repay money that they did not receive in the first place, is that it undermines the government's own proclamations of respect for the civil service.
To the extent that the federal government ought to be an exemplary employer and set the gold standard across the country for the private sector, this sends a really terrible message, which is that somehow, despite what is in law, it is acceptable according to the government to limp along not paying employees properly. It is a terrible message. It is one we need to get fixed. We know that is going to take time. We heard that from the Auditor General, but in the meantime, there are issues of fairness in the way that the government is treating these federal civil servants. That is not something that needs to take years to fix.
The government could stop, today, demanding that employees who are owed $15,000 by the government pay back $3,000. That is ridiculous. Liberals should be writing off what they owe to the employee and then make sure that the employee gets the difference instead of demanding everything from the employee up front. That speaks to the issue of demanding gross pay back when the employee only received net pay. There are other things that could be done today to address the human side of the issue.