Sifting through Phoenix ashes

The Canadian government’s Phoenix pay system shares the name of a mythical bird that lived for 1,000 years before burning up and being succeeded by a new bird that arose from the ashes.

On Tuesday, Auditor-General Michael Ferguson revealed that while Ottawa’s Phoenix has also pretty much gone up in flames, nothing worthwhile has appeared in its place. How embarrassing for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. And how expensive this will be for Canadians. It has long been clear that serious ailments afflicting the pay system have created severe financial hardship for tens of thousands of federal public servants.

Just as painfully obvious has been the Liberals’ inability to expeditiously clear up the mess.

But the auditor-general’s latest report has shown as never before the enormity of the problems, the difficulties of fixing them and the crippling costs for getting the job done.

In all, there were 150,000 federal employees with pay problems that needed correcting at the start of the summer — about half of the 290,000 public servants currently being paid through Phoenix.

Some workers were underpaid and some overpaid while others endured periods of not being paid at all.

In total, the value of these mistakes by mid-year stood at over $520 million.

First and foremost, the situation is unacceptable because of the pain and stress it is causing workers who serve the Canadian public.

For nearly two years, countless federal public servants have reported that Phoenix foul-ups have left them unable to pay bills, credit cards and mortgages.

Some have depleted their life’s savings to get by. Others have lost their homes. They all deserve better.

But there are other reasons to classify this as one of the biggest public administration failures of any federal government in Canadian history.

After studying Phoenix, the auditor concluded it will take more time and money than the three years and $540 million originally projected by Ottawa.

Perhaps it will take double that time and cost. And you can bet taxpayers will be on the hook.

What makes this all even harder to stomach is the ridiculous blame-game that followed the auditor’s report.

Predictably, the Liberals called out their Conservative predecessors who made the decision to go with Phoenix in the first place.

The Liberals accused them of rushing the design and implementation of an unproven system, failing to properly train staff and even terminating 700 special compensation staff before Phoenix was launched.

But while the Conservatives deserve more than a few knocks for their decisions, it was the Liberals who pushed the start-button to get Phoenix going in February 2016.

The Conservatives say the government did this despite the objections of a third-party analysis the Liberals themselves commissioned.

Maybe they’re both right. But enough with the politics. We have a full-blown crisis. The Liberals got Phoenix going, are in charge today and will be judged in the coming weeks and months by how they deal with a fiasco that is truly damaging people’s lives.

Something good must rise from these Phoenix ashes.