'No end in sight' for Phoenix pay system woes: Sean Casey

Charlottetown MP Sean Casey has heard complaints about the disastrous Phoenix pay system before but never like this.

Twelve federal employees met with Casey in his Charlottetown office on a Saturday afternoon inNovember, sharingtheir personal struggles and anxieties with the faulty pay system.

• Ottawa MPs inundated with pleas from Phoenix victims
• Phoenix by the numbers: 31,000 more cases revealed

"It was a pretty impactful day," he said

"I have never had that much direct exposure to the problems in that condensed a period of time."

Casey promisedto look into employees files

The federal payroll system, introduced over a year and a half ago, has improperly paid tens of thousands of federal employees across Canada and has been under siege by unions and employees.

The employees who met with Casey told himabout instances in which they wereoverpaidand, at times, weren't notifiedwhen the government clawed themoney back.

He also heard from seasonal workers whose pay was affected, which in turn affected their EI payments.

Casey said he's promised to look into the files of the workers he met with for more information and has shared their "horror stories" with the parliamentary secretary dealing with the pay system.

"For the individual people that came into the office, each and every one of them, I'm making contact through a direct line into the pay centre," he said.

• Phoenix pay system issues making it impossible to track hiring of veterans in public service
• Scrap disastrous Phoenix pay system, union head urges Trudeau government

"On these things when you make those representations to the folks at the political level it is something they've already heard but they need to keep hearing it on the macro level it's a matter of saying, 'This has really hit hard some folks on P.E.I.'"

'We know it's solvable'

Casey said there seems to be "no end in sight" for the Phoenix pay problems despite the federal government earmarking hundreds of millionsso far and tasking nearly 400 employees with fixing it.

"We hope it is solvable, we know it's solvable, but there's no good justification for why it has taken this long," he said.

"We're talking about hundreds of thousands of employees, it's a massive problem and one that was botched from the outset that it's taken an inordinate amount of people and money to get back on track."

The Public Service Alliance of Canada toldCBCP.E.I. there are likely hundreds of federalemployees impacted in the province, but it doesn't have exact numbers.

• MORE P.E.I. NEWS |Kinkora sewer rates going up 11 per cent
• MORE P.E.I. NEWS |P.E.I. sets legal age for pot at 19, to be sold in government-owned stores and online