Minister opens pay centre amid ongoing turmoil

The federal government is trying to hit the reset button on its twoyear-old bid to repair and replace the problem-plagued Phoenix pay system.

Federal cabinet minister Carla Qualtrough was dispatched Friday to Miramichi in northeastern New Brunswick, where she officially opened the centralized Public Service Pay Centre, which processes paycheques for 300,000 federal employees in 46 departments.

“We have reason to celebrate the hard work of the people working here in Miramichi,” the public services minister said after a ribbon-cutting ceremony outside the new building, which actually opened for business in January.

“They work every day to resolve these problems. We have seen progress, even if it’s not as fast as we would like.”

The feel-good photo-op comes more than two years after the government implemented the Ibm-built Phoenix system. The previous Conservative government said Phoenix would save taxpayers more than $70 million annually.

Instead, it has caused so many snafus across the country that the backlog of transactions stood at 625,000 as of March 21.

That number is expected to dip only slightly when the latest figures are released later this month, Qualtrough said.

However, a pilot project developed at the centre will be rolled out across the country to ensure more timely payments, she added.

“This pilot that we have done has reduced the queue in the departments in the pilot project by 24 per cent,” Qualtrough said. “That’s not a small amount.”

Debi Daviau, president of the 55,000-member Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said the so-called “Pay Pods” project is a good idea, but it’s only a Band-aid solution for a much bigger problem.

“No matter how many resources, and what model is being adopted, the government can never stabilize the system because the software is broken,” the union leader said in an email.

“The government should be identifying replacement options immediately, as ... PIPSC has been asking on many occasions since 2016.”

Under Phoenix, tens of thousands of civil servants have been underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all for long periods since 2016. The ongoing mess has prompted protests across the country and a class-action lawsuit.