Saint John man still missing pay after Phoenix fiasco

A Saint John man is still looking for answers after the Phoenix pay system failure shorted him $800 from his last paycheque.

The federal government announced last week it will likely not meet its deadline for resolving pay issues, but Rick Daley says they haven't been in touch with some of the people affected to let them know when they might resolve the issues.

Daley is a casual employee with the Canadian Coast Guard. He hasn't worked since June, four months after Phoenix went live and right in the middle of the media frenzy surrounding the pay problems.

At first, he didn't have issues. His first paycheque seemed unusually high, and the next three were normal. But his last pay was next to nothing.

"I wasn't able to make my car payment on time," he said, "so I had to move that to the end of my term, which incurs more interest overall, and I had to borrow a little bit of money from friends and family."

"It's just kind of snowballed from there." 

Daley's is just one of the 30,000 cases still unresolved of the more than 80,000 the federal government started with.

'Bounced around from person to person'

Daley talked to his manager, who told him to call the pay centre, who told him to call Phoenix directly.

"I kept getting bounced around from person to person to person and wasn't really able to get any straight answers,"  he said, "so it was quite frustrating."

Daley said he understands that the employees are resolving thousands of problems and he's willing to wait a little longer for his money. He just wants to know when it might be coming.

"I just want some answers from the government," he said, "like straight answers, someone I can call to actually get answers to my specific questions about my pay."

DFO says this is 'top priority'

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is one of the many departments affected, and is the department under which the Coast Guard operates.

"Employees of the department continue to experience pay irregularities due to the Phoenix system and the ongoing backlog at the Public Service Pay Centre in Miramichi," they said in a statement.

"This is a top priority for the department. Officials are working tirelessly to ensure issues are resolved quickly so that DFO employees can continue to focus on serving Canadians."

They also said that they have created a team to support employees dealing with pay irregularities, and that these teams are regularly communicating with employees.

Marie Lemay, the deputy minister in charge of the file, said during a news conference last week that the government is "tracking a bit behind."

She said the "bulk" will be cleared in time but that some of the most complex cases — those requiring "time-consuming, manual calculations" — might not.

"We're still driving for Oct. 31. We're going to give it our best shot," she said during a Wednesday afternoon update on the payroll mess. "We continue to make progress but we still have much work to do."