ONE YEAR LATER: Liberals Must Fix the Phoenix Pay Fiasco

Official Opposition Critic for Public Services and Procurement, MP Alupa Clarke, and Deputy Critic, MP Kelly McCauley, today released the following statement calling on the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, the Hon. Judy Foote, to commit to a concrete plan to address the tax issues facing tens of thousands of Canadians:

 

“It’s now been one year since the start of the Liberal Phoenix pay fiasco and employees are still not being paid. This situation is unacceptable and needs to be resolved immediately, however the Liberals still do not seem to have a concrete plan.

 

“Meanwhile, information obtained through access to information requests clearly shows that the current Liberal government failed to complete the necessary requirements prior to rolling out the first phase of the transition. This includes addressing concerns that if the previous backlog was not cleared, employees could be affected by erroneous and irregular pay. In addition, two separate departmental reports confirmed that the pay centres were fully staffed, but that individual departments had not completed the necessary training to proceed with the transition. These were all clear warnings that the Minister chose to ignore.

 

“New cases and problems with the system emerge every day and yet the Minister of Public Services and Procurement’s response continues to be ‘call the pay centre’ and ‘check the CRA website’, an empty directive when no one can get through the lines. No employee should be forced to sell their home, postpone their education, or go into debt because they are not being paid what they are rightly owed.

 

“The Minister of Public Services and Procurement needs to stop blaming others and start actually fixing the problems with Phoenix. She also needs to confirm that there will be no negative impacts on employees’ tax returns and no clawbacks of the benefits they need to live.”