Robert Poirier says he's been denied around $75,000 worth of pension income and benefits
Despite retiring from public service over two years ago, an Ottawa man is stuck in a bizarre bureaucratic limbo thanks to a payroll snafu that’s left him unable to access his pension.
Last Thursday marked the second anniversary of Robert Poirier’s retirement as a senior policy advisor with Natural Resources Canada, capping off a 22-year career with the government of Canada — but it’s also been two years since the papers meant to end his employment arrived at the government of Canada pay centre, where they’ve sat untouched.
“Everyone I’ve dealt with has been really sympathetic, they completely understand my case, but they said they’re handcuffed — all they can do is escalate cases,” he told the National Post.
“I can’t actually speak to the person who would actually fix my case, or understand why it’s still sitting in a queue. They can’t provide that answer.”
So far, Poirier says he’s been denied around $75,000 worth of pension income and benefits.
All that’s required for Poirier to start collecting his pension is for the pay centre to process his now two-year-old termination papers, but as of this week that still hasn’t happened.
Poirier provided documents to the National Post highlighting his plight, including action request forms to the public service pay centre and letters pleading for help from his MP.
All his efforts have gone nowhere.
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Contacting his MP for help did little but prompt the pay centre to demand repayment for an outstanding lump-sum income averaging adjustment — money he says he never received due to his unprocessed termination.
Not even his union, the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE,) were interested in helping him.
“This is not something that’s grievable, so they’re not interested,” he said.
Poirier said a post-retirement 2021 dental appointment provided the first indication that something was wrong.
Despite being covered under his wife’s benefits — also a government of Canada pensioner — the dentist inadvertently submitted the bill to Poirier’s old government benefits account.
“They ended up submitting it under my plan, and it passed,” Poirier said.
A followup with his insurance company confirmed Poirier — despite tendering his resignation months prior — was still on the books as an active employee, and as of today his old government benefits are still active.
“That was my first inkling that I need to settle this right away.”
A call to the government pension centre referred him to the pay centre, who informed him that his termination paperwork was “in the queue” but provided no clarity on when it would be processed.
They're glorified ticket agents.
Robert Poirier on his experience calling a government of Canada pay centre for help
What followed was two years of regular checks and escalation requests, urging the pay centre to fix the problem.
“They’re glorified ticket agents,” he explained.
“They’ll give you a ticket for the call, they record the call and issue, and they send it off to the pay adviser.”
In the past, Poirier said pay problems could be rectified by calling somebody directly, but that changed after the government consolidated and centralized its payroll workers.
“There’s a disconnect now. Everybody now is a glorified note-taker who just passes messages along,” Poirier said.
The lifelong public servant — certainly no stranger to the intricacies of government bureaucracy — said this situation is beyond anything he’s ever encountered.
“When you’re dealing with the pay centre, it’s almost Kafkaesque — I don’t know how else to put it,” he said.
“They’ve created an efficient system for the triaging of the cases they want to do, but there’s no accountability. I have yet to see any metrics.”
While there are departmental liaisons for pay issues, Poirier wasn’t able to contact them because he’s no longer an employee.
“I am an employee, and yet I’m not,” Poirier says with an exasperated laugh.
Serious payroll issues are nothing new to Canadian public servants.
Federal workers have been subjected to a myriad of problems since the government’s Phoenix pay system was rolled out in 2016 — specifically those seeking changes in their payroll status.
Provided by IBM, Phoenix was intended as a modern solution to replace and consolidate scores of outdated payroll systems into one, unified entity.
Nearly 80 per cent of federal employees have reported pay issues directly related to Phoenix.
Problems related to Phoenix were blamed for financially ruining many public servants, leading to foreclosures, bankruptcies and even suicides.
Last November, Public Services and Procurement Minister Helena Jaczek told the House government operations committee the Phoenix problem backlog had exceeded 200,000 cases — due largely to recent hiring sprees in the public service.
Describing the Phoenix debacle in 2018 as an “incomprehensible failure,” Canada’s auditor general said last year that more than $500 million in overpayments were issued to over 100,000 federal workers since 2019.
The 2023 federal budget set aside $1.38 billion until 2024-25 to fix outstanding issues with Phoenix and clear backlogs, as well as paying at least $700 million in damages.
That same budget also promised an additional $52 million to continue work on replacing Phoenix with a more modern — and hopefully functional — “next-generation” pay system.
When asked for comment to explain how widespread the problem is, Minister Jaczek’s office said they don’t comment on individual cases.
“The department is working to support current and former employees, and resolve outstanding pay issues as quickly as possible,” the statement read.
Invitations for comment to Public Services and Procurement Canada weren’t returned by deadline, neither were emails to Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi, Poirier’s member of Parliament.
It seems everything the Liberals touch is broken.
Conservative Treasury Board Critic Stephanie Kusie
Conservative Treasury Board Critic Stephanie Kusie told the National Post that these sorts of government backlogs are nothing new to this administration.
“It seems everything the Liberals touch is broken,” she said.
“It shouldn’t be too much to ask that when a worker puts in years of service, they can ease into retirement.”
The ordeal has convinced Poirier that public servants have no recourse when faced with serious pay problems.
“Processing employee terminations shouldn’t be something foreign to them,” he said.
“In any big organization, people join and leave on a daily basis. Nobody can explain to me why I can’t contact the pay centre directly, and what’s so difficult about my case.”
To that end, Poirier said it’s ridiculous that he needed to seek the help of his MP to fix this, and that the government is long overdue in introducing some sort of advocate for public servants with critical payroll problems like himself.
“What there isn’t with this centralized pay system is an ombudsman,” he said.
“There’s no one to go to. There’s no one to cut through the red tape and say ‘what the heck is going on, this makes no sense.”
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