Canada's NDP

Skip to main content

February 28th, 2018

The Phoenix fiasco: No compensation, no apology from Justin Trudeau

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government refused to take any responsibility on Wednesday in the House of Commons for the reckless implementation of the Phoenix payroll system. Instead of helping public servants affected by the disastrous system, the Liberals preferred to blame the former Conservative government and refused to offer compensation or an apology to Phoenix’s victims.

“The federal government is sending an insulting message to public sector workers,” said Karine Trudel, the NDP Labour critic. “Instead of looking for solutions, the Liberals spent the entire debate calling the NDP and unions liars, and playing partisan politics. They don’t want to help the victims of Phoenix, they want to save face.”

The Liberals promised to fix Phoenix by the end of October 2016, but today, on the two year anniversary of the system being operationalized, the Liberals are again letting down employees who continue to be paid incorrectly. Had the Liberals listened to the unions and departmental staff who called on them to postpone implementing the system, this whole fiasco could have been averted.

“Canadian taxpayers are looking at a bill of between 1 and 5 billion dollars just to correct the current errors in the system,” said Peter Julian, the NDP Finance Critic. “It’s ridiculous for this government to refuse to offer any compensation to public sector employees, who are experiencing financial and emotional hardships, due to this reckless Liberal decision.”