NDP to demand apology, compensation for public servants affected by Phoenix fiasco

The NDP will table a motion in the House of Commons today urging the federal government to not only apologize to public servants who've experienced Phoenix pay woes, but also compensate them for the hardship they've endured.

The motion comes almost two years to the day since the problem-plagued payroll system was launched. Since then, tens of thousands of federal employees have either been underpaid, overpaid, or not paid at all.

With no end in sight to the problem, the NDP hopes its motion will light a fire under the Liberal government and spur more drastic action to fix the Phoenix fiasco.

"Phoenix has been a complete debacle," said NDP finance critic Peter Julian, who will co-sponsor the motion.

"There's an expectation when you do a good day's work that you'll be paid at the end of the day, and you'll be able to put food on the table," he said.

"That hasn't happened in this case at all."

Lasting harm

Annie Guimond, a single mother of two young boys, says all federal employees have their own Phoenix story.

Hers began in November 2016, when the Gatineau woman left her job as a legal counsel with the Department of Justice to go on maternity leave.

Guimond said she was overpaid for two and a half months — until suddenly she wasn't paid at all.

"I had a friend, thankfully, who was there to feed us," she said, holding back tears.

"I remember going to the grocery store with my son and saying, 'Well, mommy doesn't have money right now to buy some extra stuff that we typically buy, so we have to be careful.'"

Guimond said she still hasn't fully repaid the debts she incurred at the time and worries she hasn't seen the last of her Phoenix issues.

"This is just always in the back of your mind. You're trying to work. You're giving your 100 per cent, but your employers, they don't care," she said.

Apologies only go so far

While she's glad the NDP is focusing more attention on Phoenix, Guimond said the government can keep its apology if it can't put forward a plan to fix the problem once and for all.

Last November, as the backlog of Phoenix cases swelled to 520,000, Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough issued an apology to federal workers across the country.

Four months later, NDP finance critic Peter Julian said Qualtrough has failed to fix Phoenix, describing her apology Sunday as "half-hearted."

"Public servants are still waiting for their pay," he said. "That's unacceptable."

Calls for fair compensation

Stéphane Aubry, vice-president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, welcomes the NDP's motion as a sign that MPs will intensify their calls to fix Phoenix.

"Taking that next step will be a good gesture in properly compensating, properly recognizing the damages that have been done to [the government's] own employees," said Aubry, whose union represents about 50,000 federal workers.

Still, given the sheer number of employees affected and the intricacies of each case, Aubry said it would be extremely difficult to determine what constitutes fair compensation.

Although the financial hit in individual cases could provide a baseline, he said, it's far more difficult to quantify the toll Phoenix has taken on employees' mental health and their personal relationships.

'Totally unacceptable'

In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Qualtrough said the problems facing government employees as a result of Phoenix are "totally unacceptable."

"Our government is doing everything it can to resolve pay issues as quickly as possible," the statement said.

"We take any suggestion that might help limit the financial hardship faced our employees very seriously."

But Guimond has long grown tired of her employer's assurances.

"I really hope they fix this soon — for the sake of everybody I work with and all my colleagues. This is a shame," she said. "It's just terrible."