Mr. Speaker, it is a bit rich coming from the member across to get up and give empty lectures on a pay system. Let us go through a little of the chronology. The member across has conveniently omitted several facts.
The first fact he admits is that the Phoenix pay system began to be planned in 2008. It was his own friend, the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka, and his colleagues in cabinet, who ordered, dictated, ordained that this system must save money. We learned later that this system had to save $70 million annually. They bragged about that. Where did that $70 million come from? It came from firing summarily some of the most experienced and dedicated people in the public service of Canada, those who served as compensation advisers. Between 2008 and 2015, the member's party cynically, wrongly, and, as has been identified in countless reports, systematically at every turn in the planning process, broke every single rule in the enterprise information technology book.
The minute the member stands up and says we do not have a plan to fix the Phoenix pay system, he should look in the mirror and all around those Tory benches. There are 700 people out there this evening who could be helping us, and the Conservatives fired them.
My riding in Gatineau, like many ridings across the country, is full of dedicated public servants. We owe them our best efforts, our dedication. We owe, as the minister says so often, leaving no stone unturned.
The member talks about a Teddy award from some weird right-wing interest group, talks about the fact that we are spending too much to fix the mess that reeks, as I have said many times, of the arsonists complaining when the fire department shows up. That is what reeks. It is almost comedic for the member to stand in his place and say on the one hand that we are spending too much to fix the problem that they caused and, on the other hand, we do not have a plan to fix the system.
We have both. We have identified the resources to fix the problem, and we have a plan to fix this very sordid public administration debacle that the party across left us with and they ought to apologize for.