Senators studying how to fix the Phoenix pay system debacle did not ask any of the executives who led the failed rollout to appear before them.
Members of the Senate’s national finance committee held a press conference on Tuesday to release the recommendations of their report into the fiasco, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants being underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all since it was implemented two years ago.
While the report focused on how to address the challenges of resolving the pay system debacle going forward, senators quickly faced repeated questioning over why, despite calling senior officials and the minister responsible for the file to testify, they did not do the same for the three executives who actually led the roll out and who have been accused of ignoring warning signs that the system wasn’t ready.
READ MORE: Phoenix pay system will take five years to fix and cost billions, report says
“No, we didn’t,” said Independent Senator André Pratte, who is vice chair of the committee, when asked if the committee had asked them to appear.
“We didn’t want to target individuals.”
WATCH BELOW: Senators say Phoenix problems have discouraged people from joining the civil service
That decision didn’t sit well with Michelle Wiltshire, a former federal corrections worker who told Global News at one point, she was owed $35,000 because of the pay system problems – and is still owed backpay.
“It makes me furious that those other executives weren’t called,” she said when asked for her reaction to the report.
“Someone should be held accountable.”
As part of its study, the committee called among its witnesses Public Works Minister Carla Qualtrough, Auditor General Michael Ferguson, Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick, and senior executives from associations representing civil servants and IBM Canada, which built the Phoenix pay system.
WATCH: Former federal government employees devastated by Phoenix pay system
But the senators said they felt also calling the executives who actually led the failed roll out would not be fair.
“If we called them before committee, it would have meant they were solely responsible for the problem,” Pratte said.
When asked whether the committee was disagreeing with the May 2018 findings by Ferguson, who blamed “government culture” for the debacle and said three senior executives responsible for the file ignored clear signs it wasn’t ready in order to hit deadlines, the chair of the committee said the question wasn’t that simple.
READ MORE: ‘An incomprehensible failure’ — Auditor general slams Phoenix pay system rollout
“No we’re not, but we’re saying that’s not all, that the responsibility is shared with many other people and institutions. It would be too simple to say there’s three executives and let’s have them as witnesses and target them,” said Conservative Senator Percy Mockler.
“It’s much more complicated.”
READ MORE: Auditor general stands by stinging criticism of Phoenix pay system
Liberal Senator Mobina Jaffer, also a vice chair of the committee, said the committee believed that because the executives in charge had not been named in official reports into the matter, that it would not be right for the committee to call them to appear.
“The Auditor General did not name these people,” she said.
“The fact he himself did not, as he has in the past, identify them, means he did not put all the blame on them.”
However, several of the executives have already been identified publicly through media reporting and through testimony at other venues.
WATCH BELOW: Senators rail against Phoenix pay system ‘debacle’
One, Rosanna Di Paola, remains in the federal public service.
She had led the file since 2013 as associate assistant deputy minister of accounting, banking and compensation, but was shuffled into a role as a senior adviser in late 2016. She was also the only bureaucrat to testify at a labour tribunal hearing into the fiasco.
Last summer, Di Paola was named as the regional director general for Quebec and assistant deputy minister for special projects with the department.
Another senior executive responsible for the file, former assistant deputy minister Brigitte Fortin, retired last year.
None of those involved were fired.
WATCH BELOW: Canada’s auditor general says ‘many signs’ Phoenix pay system was not ready
The report itself warned that federal pay advisers brought on to help solve the problem have not been trained adequately, furthering the likelihood that fixing the failed pay system will take years and cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
It also warned those costs are on track to hit $2.2 billion within the next five years.
The committee blamed the Phoenix debacle on a systemic cultural problem within government in which senior civil servants play down bad news and avoid responsibility.
The report notes that not a single person has been held to account.
Among its five key recommendations, the committee is calling on the Trudeau government to set targets for processing outstanding pay requests, which currently number around 577,000.
It also urges the government to do more to help employees facing financial distress.
With files from the Canadian Press
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