Nearly every summer student working for Parks Canada last summer was affected by the federal government鈥檚 botched payroll system, according to Chris Aylward, national executive vice-president for the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).
Known as the Phoenix payroll system, the software was blamed for failing to pay federal civil servants accurately and on time for weeks and months on end.
At the height of the crisis in July, there was a backlog of 82,000 employees reporting pay issues, including 1,785 Parks Canada employees across the country, according to Nicolas Boucher, a media relations officer with Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC).
鈥淧retty much every single summer student that worked for Parks Canada was affected by Phoneix, which is very unfortunate,鈥� said Aylward.
鈥淲hen you can鈥檛 pay your students for six, seven or eight weeks they鈥檙e going to leave and that鈥檚 exactly what they did.鈥�
In the majority of the cases employees reported being underpaid, however in some cases people reported being overpaid or not paid at all.
In early October the government said it was on track to deal with a backlog of more than 80,000 cases by Oct. 31, but missed its self-imposed deadline.
As of Dec. 14 there were still 10,000 outstanding cases to be resolved, including 64 Parks Canada cases.
鈥淭he ongoing public service pay problems are completely unacceptable. We continue to work tirelessly to help each and every employee experiencing a problem with his or her pay,鈥� wrote Boucher.
鈥淎 dedicated group of compensation advisors in Miramichi and the satellite offices are working on resolving the 10,000 remaining cases in the backlog, which affect employees in many departments and mainly involve supplementary pay.鈥�
The Phoenix payroll system has been plagued with glitches since it was rolled out across the country in February.
To try and resolve the issue, the government has been issuing emergency salary advances when necessary and hired 100 employees to work in a satellite pay unit in Gatineau, Que., to resolve the backlog of unprocessed pay requests.
One of the big challenges the government is now trying to resolve are concerns about how payment issues might affect people鈥檚 taxes.
According to PSPC, the agency has been working with the Canada Revenue Agency, Revenue Qu茅bec, the unions and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat to minimize the potential for problems.
According to the government, overpayments recorded in Phoenix will not be reflected in an employee鈥檚 yearly earnings, regardless of whether or not they have been repaid.聽For employees who received emergency salary advances and priority payments, that money will also not appear on T4s.
For employees who are missing pay, their income tax will be calculated using the actual amount they received. Therefore, any salary paid in 2017, even if it relates to salary that would normally have been paid in 2016, will be included in their 2017 T4s.
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
