Mr. Speaker, let us guess which employer I am talking about.
One person who retired from working for this employer has to pay tax on income he never received. Another is still waiting on nearly $40,000 in back wages. One employee transferred to another unit and has not been paid in seven weeks. Another has been waiting two years for his pay, and his file just sat there gathering dust because the person who was supposed to handle it spoke only English and did not see fit to transfer the file to someone who could speak French. Thousands of other employees are being taxed on their compensation payments because Treasury Board and the Canada Revenue Agency have not figured out how to talk to each other.
Bingo. I am talking about the Government of Canada and its Phoenix pay system.
If a private company were to do this kind of thing, it would pretty quickly find itself in court. In this case, the government has left its own employees in the lurch for five years now.
Our public servants are dedicated and do not deserve to be treated the way we are treating them, the way the Canadian government is treating them.