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Phoenix pay system
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The Phoenix pay system is a payroll processing system for Canadian federal government employees, provided by IBM in June 2011 using PeopleSoft software, and run by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The Public Service Pay Centre is located in Miramichi, New Brunswick. It was first introduced in 2009 as part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative, intended to replace Canada's 40-year old system with a new, cost-saving "automated, off-the-shelf commercial system."

By July 2018, Phoenix had caused pay problems to close to 80 percent of the federal government's 290,000 public servants through underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments.[1] The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, chaired by Senator Percy Mockler, sought to examine the causes for the failure, holding "eight meetings with 28 witnesses, including the Auditor General of Canada, union representatives, departments and agencies, officials from IBM, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and the Clerk of the Privy Council"[1] and paid a visit to the Miramichi pay system location during their investigation. Their report, "The Phoenix Pay Problem: Working Towards a Solution", was released on July 31, 2018, in which they called Phoenix a failure and an "international embarrassment".[1] Instead of saving $70 million a year as planned, the report said that the cost to taxpayers to fix Phoenix's problems could reach a total of $2.2 billion by 2023. The Office of the Auditor General of Canada also performed an independent audit, and published a report in 2018 that concluded that the Phoenix project “was an incomprehensible failure of project management and oversight”,[2] and that Phoenix executives did not heed warnings from the Miramichi Pay Centre, costing the federal government hundreds of millions of dollars, and had a negative financial impact on tens of thousands of its employees.

As of June 2025, the system has cost the government more than $5.1 billion.[3] There was a backlog of more than 408,000 unresolved pay issues affecting federal employees as of October 2024.[4]

History

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Preparing for rollout

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The 2009 initial funding, the 2010 initiation, the 2016 implementation, and ongoing operation of what would become the Phoenix pay system, was overseen by a series of the Department of Public Services and Procurement Canada Ministers, spanning the tenure of former-Prime Minister Harper (February 6, 2006 – November 4, 2015) and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (November 4, 2015 – March 14, 2025). Three ministers oversaw these various stages under Harper—Christian Paradis, from June 25, 2008, to January 19, 2010, Rona Ambrose from January 19, 2010, to July 14, 2013, and Diane Finley from July 15, 2013, to November 4, 2015. Under its new name of Public Services and Procurement—Judy Foote, who was appointed by Trudeau, served from November 4, 2015, to August 24, 2017. Trudeau appointed Carla Qualtrough to serve from August 28, 2017, to November 20, 2019. The name of the ministry was changed to Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility while Qualtrough was in office. The current Minister of Public Services and Procurement is Anita Anand, who was appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau on November 20, 2019. Judy Foote became PSPC Minister and Marie Lemay, deputy minister, in Trudeau's first cabinet on November 4, 2015, just after the fall election. By May 2016, "Phoenix errors and delays" had already "affected about 82,000 public servants."[5]

Following the 2008 recession, Prime Minister Harper was focused on reducing costs, which included reducing the size of the civil service.[6] According to the Ottawa Citizen, in July 2009, then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet, approved funding for a $310-million Public Works initiative called Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative (TPA).[1]: 6 [7] The two parts of the TPA were Pay Modernization and Pay Consolidation. Pay Modernization referred to the replacement of the 40-year-old existing payroll system—the Regional Pay System (RPS)—with a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) system.[8] The second aspect of the TPA—Pay Consolidation—referred to the transferral of pay services of departments and agencies that had been using the existing Government of Canada IT system for human resources—My Government of Canada Human Resources (My GCHR)—to a new centralized Pay Centre[8] with all payroll administration and employees in one place.[7] Phoenix would serve "101 departments and nearly 300,000 employees".[7][9] The hope was that a new, more centralized and automated system would lower labour requirements and reduce costs by $78 million a year[10] by "eliminating 650 positions, automating pay processes, and eliminating duplicate data entry."[1]: 6  It was expected to be online by 2015.[11]

In August 2010, Stephen Harper announced that the new Public Service Pay Centre would be located in Miramichi, New Brunswick, as compensation for the closing of the long-gun registry centre in that city.[12]

In June 2011, IBM won the sole-source contract to set up the system, using PeopleSoft software, the original contract was for $5.7 million, but IBM was eventually paid $185 million.[13] According to The New York Times, Oracle Corporation's PeopleSoft software system was "widely used by corporations and institutions to manage operations, finances and employees."[14]

In March 2014, according to an IBM spokeswoman, the Crown took over responsibility for "training design and execution" from IBM in a cost-saving measure. The government adopted a 'train the trainer' approach rather than follow IBM's recommended system.[15]

Screenshot from openstreetmap.org with an indicator added. This shows the location of the Public Service Pay Center (City of Miramichi).

Prior to 2012, about 2,000 pay advisors/specialists in 101 federal departments and agencies "processed pay, advised employees, and corrected errors" in scattered locations. When the new Miramichi Public Service Pay Centre was opened in May 2012, the PSPC began to eliminate pay advisor positions in 46 individual departments and agencies and replace them with "460 pay advisors and 90 support staff" at new centralized location in Pay Centre. By 2016, the PSPC had cut 1,200 pay advisor positions. Following centralization, these departments and agencies administrators no longer had "direct access to the new pay system." There were an additional 55 departments and agencies who maintained approximately 800 pay advisors who continued to enter pay information for their own employees in the new Phoenix system.[16]

In May 2015, IBM made the recommendation that government delay its planned rollout of Phoenix due to critical problems.[17] In June 2015, before Phoenix was launched, some federal employees complained about not being paid, and there were reports that the Miramichi pay centre employees were overwhelmed.[18] The Auditor General's May 29, 2018 report "Building and Implementing the Phoenix Pay System" found that in June 2015, Public Services and Procurement Canada cancelled a pilot to test Phoenix in a single department to assess whether Phoenix was ready for government wide use.[19]

Two reports by two independent contractors—Gartner Consulting and Calgary-based S.i. Systems—were commissioned. S.i. Systems submitted their report to Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) departmental staff in January 2016. PSPC received the Gartner Consulting report on February 11, 2016. Both consultants were charged with assessing the viability of the Phoenix payroll system before a government-wide rollout. Neither report called for implementation to be stopped, but offered suggestions to mitigate risks. The S.i. Systems report concluded that Phoenix should move forward, as "the benefits of doing so appear to outweigh the risks. The next phase will be challenging, but it is likely that the problems and difficulties that will be encountered will be manageable." The Gartner report casts a different picture, specifically predicting there was a moderate possibility that "expectations for accuracy and timeliness of pay may not be met as a result of lack of true end-to-end testing." Judy Foote, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada was never briefed on the Gartner report by her departmental staffers.[20]

After rollout

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In February 2016, the first wave of the Phoenix pay system was launched to over 34 government departments, affecting 120,000 employees.[11] The New York Times reported that when the "government switched to the new payroll system", "about 2,700 payroll clerks who were no longer supposed to be needed" were laid off. The Times said that the Canadian federal government "manages a payroll of 20 billion Canadian dollars a year, about $15 billion."[14]

By April 2016, CBC News reported that there were thousands of public servants experiencing Phoenix payroll problems with initial complaints about underpayments. The PSAC, a federal employee union, called for the Liberal government to delay the second phase of the Phoenix roll out.[21] Despite this request, the federal government rolled out Phoenix to the remaining 67 departments on April 21, 2016, and decommissioned the old system.[11]

After the roll out, there were continued complaints about underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments. In June 2016, the government launched a satellite pay center in Gatineau in a response to the problems, with about 100 employees.[9] On June 28, a dozen federal unions, including the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) launched a lawsuit in the Federal Court against the government trying to force on-time payments. Plaintiffs included 2,000 Parks Canada seasonal employees represented by the PSAC who had worked from April to June without pay.[22]

By July 2016, Marie Lemay, PSPC deputy minister, became "the face of the bungled Phoenix pay system" after the PSPC "first revealed that its Phoenix errors and delays had affected about 82,000 public servants."[5] The NDP and Conservatives issued statements in July requesting updates on Phoenix pay problems and as a result the federal government called for a July 28, "emergency summer meeting of the House of Commons operations and estimates committee. In addition, the Auditor General, Michael Ferguson, was asked to investigate and report on Phoenix pay problems.[10] At that time, it was estimated that the problems would be fixed by the end of October 2016, for an additional cost of $20 million,[23] but by then there were still 20,000 outstanding cases. The government delayed its target for fixing the backlog to the end of 2016, a deadline that was also not met.[24]

In September 2016, Judy Foote, who was the minister responsible for the Phoenix payroll system rollout in 2016, and who served as minister from November 4, 2015 to August 24, 2017, was questioned by a House of Commons committee.[25] Members of the opposition NDP suggested Foote should take more responsibility for Phoenix problems.[26]

An independent, third-party firm—Goss Gilroy Inc. (GGI)—hired by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) and the PSPC in early 2017—undertook a study of the federal government's "activities related to the Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative (TPA) from 2008 to April 2016." The GGI report, "Lessons Learned from the Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative", was submitted in October 2017.[8]

By May 2017, after several government announcements, the total cost of fixing the system had increased to $400 million.[27] In September 2017, the Auditor General of Canada, submitted a report, "Phoenix Pay Problems" to Parliament,[16] and concluded that Public Services and Procurement Canada had failed in both resolving pay issues and in providing affected departments with the relevant information and support to resolve their employees pay problems.[16] They emphasized the urgency of the issue as Phoenix' pay problems financially affected thousands of public servants in a government with an annual payroll in 2017 of about $22 billion.[16] The report said that PSPC knew that they had to "analyze all 200 of the programs" that had been added to PeopleSoft "to identify the system-related sources of pay errors". PSPC only began its analysis in March 2017 and had only analysed "6 of the 200 custom programs" by the time the report had been submitted.[16] In November 2017, the total estimated cost to fix the system had increased to $540 million, an amount which the federal auditor general thought was inadequate.[28] A federal union called for the Phoenix system to be scrapped, a call which the government has rejected.[29]

The PSPC has had to pay IBM "additional fees" to "make substantial changes to the software" and hire about 1000 employees to deal with backlogs caused by Phoenix.[1]: 6 

The Office of the Auditor General's May 29, 2018 report concluded that three PSPC Phoenix executives were "responsible for delivering the Phoenix pay system" and that the PSPC Deputy Minister "was responsible for ensuring that a governance and oversight mechanism to manage the project was in place, documented, and maintained, and that the project was managed according to its complexity and risk". The Auditor’s report found these executives had the opportunity to provide accurate information to the deputy ministers, including the Deputy Minister of Public Services and Procurement before Phoenix was implemented, but failed to do so.[2]

From 2009 to 2016 when Phoenix was being developed and "up to and including its first wave, three different people served as Deputy Minister."[19] The report stated that, "Considering the broad intricacies and scope of these processes and systems, the Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative has been a large and complex undertaking with substantial risks."[19] By May 2018 there was still a backlog of about 600,000 pay requests at the Public Service Pay Centre.[1]: 6 

According to a July 31, 2018 report by the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, which was chaired by Senator Percy Mockler,[1][Notes 1] the Phoenix system was an "international embarrassment". It had "failed to properly pay nearly half of Canada's workforce of public servants, representing 153,000 people. The report added that the system, whose original 2009 budget was $309-million, had already cost taxpayers $954-million and could rise to $2.2 billion by 2023 in unplanned costs. According to The Globe and Mail, the Standing Committee blamed Harper's Conservative government for creating the "Phoenix mess".[30]

According to a November 8, 2019 Ottawa Citizen article, Pascale Boulay, a Quebec coroner, determined that the 2017 death by suicide of a 52-year-old woman from Val-des-Monts, Quebec, was preventable. The coroner assigned blame on the "flawed Phoenix pay system" that had "led her to emotional and financial ruin." The woman had been employed by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). On November 7, 2019, PSAC's national president said that the "case illustrates the mental toll of Phoenix where there is still a backlog of 228,000 instances of pay errors."[31]

In July 2020, the Public Service Alliance of Canada announced a major settlement with the Government of Canada. The settlement involves general damages compensation of $2,500 for all affected employees, an improved compensation process for out-of-pocket expenses and other financial losses caused by Phoenix, and a compensation process for severe impacts such as ruined credit ratings, accumulated interest on loans or credit cards, loss of security clearance due to bankruptcy, mental anguish and trauma, or loss of savings from cashing in investments such as RRSPs to pay debts.[32]

In July 2024, Government of Canada announced the latest goal to clear all Phoenix backlogged cases by 2025, at a cost of $963 million.[33]

Problems and impacts on employees

[edit]

By October 2016, among the employees affected, the greatest concentration of pay errors affected those employees with changes in position or status, and those with supplementary payments, such as overtime. Students, new hires, seasonal, temporary and terminated employees were therefore particularly affected, as have those taking or coming back from leave which includes maternity and medical.[9] Issues with health and dental benefits, disability claims, and insurance benefits were also a concern.[34] In some instances, employees have not received their pay altogether. This includes a former CRA employee who received multiple paychecks totaling $0.00.[35] As a result of Phoenix incorrectly generating her paystubs, said employee's house was foreclosed on by her bank.[1]

Even after retiring from the Federal Public Service, some past employees are still attempting to apprehend missing pay, and in some case, paying back debt to the Federal Government due to previous overpayments.[36] Current and past employees have reported that the inconsistencies in their pay has negatively impacted their mental health.[1] To remove themselves from the stress and anxiety that Phoenix has caused them, some employees have opted for early retirement, surrendering their full pensions.[36]

Causes

[edit]

There have been several causes put forward for Phoenix's problems. Government managers have blamed the lack of training for employees, particularly those in the new Miramichi pay centre.[37] Federal unions have blamed IBM, drawing comparisons with the 2010 Queensland Health payroll problems, which also involved IBM, and eventually cost $1.2 billion.[38] The former Conservative government has been blamed for cutting employees too quickly and under-spending on training. The Liberal government has been blamed for rolling out the system too quickly and ignoring warning signs.[39]

Replacement

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In May 2019 the federal government named three companies that will compete to replace the Phoenix pay system. In 2018, the government had announced a plan to eventually scrap Phoenix, but only after a new system with improved technology is put in place. The new system needs to be adjustable and able to change with new technology and government needs, contrasting the Phoenix pay system which had to be adapted frequently.[40]

The three companies chosen to compete as the replacement are as follows: Ceridian (a US-based pay systems specialist with offices across Canada), SAP (a German multinational that creates business management software), and Workday (a US-based cloud applications provider). All three companies were on a short list of five vendors released in 2018.[40]

The Treasury Board’s reasoning for picking three finalists was to give the government flexibility in their decision to make sure they had options in the event they need to pivot to a different solution. Although one of the companies was to be picked for replacing the Phoenix pay system, the other remaining companies  could still be used for different elements.  Once a new system is picked, they will need to implement it in a way in which it can run while the old Phoenix system is being slowly eliminated.[40]

Ceridian,[41] a global human capital management software company which has a flagship cloud-based human capital management platform called Dayforce, won an eight-year, $16.9-million contract in 2021.[42]

Since awarding the contract in 2021, a special committee named the Next Generation HR and Pay Joint Union Management Committee was created to "advance the mutual goal of discussing and identifying opportunities and considerations for a potential Next Generation HR and Pay solution as early in the process as possible and before formative decisions are implemented".[43] This committee is made up of a combination of union representatives and federal government representatives. The committee was established to tackle issues, including but not limited to "identifying problematic areas and gaps with regard to Next Generation HR and Pay activities and developing specific solutions , strategies and approaches to address these problems".[44] The committee will operate in a consulting capacity, and has stated "To consult does not imply unanimous or majority agreement. Where consensus cannot be reached, the reason will be documented." Furthermore, "Outcomes and discussions of the committee will not replace existing legislation or collective agreements".[44] The main objective of this committee also includes simplifying the pay rules for public servants, in order to reduce the complexity of the development of Phoenix's replacement. This complexity of the current pay rules is a result of "negotiated rules for pay and benefits over 60 years that are specific to each of over 80 occupational groups in the public service."[44] making it difficult to develop a single solution which can handle each occupational groups specific needs.

In June 2025, a ten-year contract worth $350.6 million was awarded to Ceridan for the Dayforce platform, with a ten-year extension option available.[3]

See also

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Notes

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References

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[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Phoenix pay system

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from Grokipedia
The Phoenix pay system is a customized PeopleSoft-based payroll processing platform deployed by in February 2016 to replace the 40-year-old Regional Pay System and consolidate operations at the Miramichi Pay Centre for approximately 300,000 federal public service employees. Intended to automate routine transactions, cut processing costs for the government's $22 billion annual payroll, and enhance efficiency through centralization, the system instead triggered systemic failures due to inadequate testing and project oversight. Auditor General reports documented a quadrupling of outstanding pay requests across 46 departments shortly after launch, with erroneous overpayments and underpayments persisting for years and affecting the majority of employees. Remediation efforts have incurred costs exceeding $5 billion as of 2025, far surpassing initial projections, while the platform has failed to deliver promised efficiencies or user satisfaction. Government initiatives, including supplementary staffing and compensation for affected workers, have provided partial relief but not resolved underlying defects, prompting plans for a next-generation replacement. The episode exemplifies risks of accelerated IT modernization without rigorous validation, as critiqued in independent audits attributing issues to managerial decisions over technical shortcomings.

Development and Planning

Origins and Objectives

The Phoenix pay system originated from efforts dating back to the late 1980s to modernize Canada's federal government payroll processes, but gained formal momentum in the mid-2000s under the Conservative government of Prime Minister . In September 2007, (PSPC) proposed updating the aging pay system technology, though initial decisions were deferred. By May 2009, PSPC's Accounting, Banking and Compensation Branch completed a for a comprehensive overhaul, leading to Cabinet approval in July 2009 for the Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative. This initiative allocated $186 million specifically for developing Phoenix to serve 101 departments and nearly 300,000 employees, as part of broader fiscal restraint measures aimed at reducing government expenditures. The primary objective of Phoenix was to replace the Regional Pay System (RPS), a 40-year-old legacy platform that had become increasingly inefficient and costly to maintain, handling pay for approximately 290,000 federal employees across multiple regional offices. Phoenix, built on Oracle's software, sought to centralize all processing at a single pay centre in , consolidating operations previously distributed across 29 locations and eliminating redundancies. This centralization was intended to standardize processes, enhance data management, and integrate with departmental human resources systems to process over 80,000 unique pay rules for a $22 billion annual . Key goals included achieving significant cost savings through and workforce reduction, with projections of $70 million in annual savings starting in 2016–17 by eliminating about 1,200 pay advisor positions and replacing them with roughly 550 staff at the Miramichi centre. The system also aimed to improve accuracy, timeliness, and employee capabilities, allowing public servants direct access to their pay records to reduce administrative burdens and support the government's Initiative. Despite these ambitions, early planning overlooked substantial complexities in adapting commercial software to the government's intricate pay rules, setting the stage for later implementation challenges.

Technical Design and Contractors

The Phoenix pay system was developed as a customized implementation of Oracle's PeopleSoft human resources and payroll software, selected to replace a legacy system dating back over 40 years and to serve approximately 290,000 federal public servants across 101 departments and agencies. The technical architecture relied on PeopleSoft's modular framework, comprising a suite of interconnected modules for payroll processing, time and labor management, benefits administration, and self-service employee access, with custom configurations—including PeopleCode scripting in modules like Time and Labour—to accommodate government-specific rules such as collective agreements and retroactive adjustments. This design emphasized centralization at the Public Service Pay Centre in Miramichi, New Brunswick, automation of routine transactions, and integration with departmental HR systems to reduce manual interventions, though the customization process involved scope reductions to align with approved budgets. IBM Canada was the principal contractor, awarded the contract on June 1, 2011, to lead the design, customization, integration, testing, and implementation of Phoenix, leveraging its expertise in deployments. The initial contract phase was valued at $5.8 million, but subsequent amendments expanded the scope, with total expenditures on for Phoenix-related work reaching over $784 million by September 2024, including development, fixes, and support services. (PSPC), the lead department, managed the project internally while outsourcing core technical work to , with no other major prime contractors identified for the foundational build; provided the underlying platform and later support extensions as the original version approached end-of-life in 2018.

Implementation and Rollout

Pre-2016 Preparations

The Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative (TPA), which encompassed the development of the Phoenix pay system, originated in 2008 as an effort by (now ) to modernize the federal government's legacy Regional Pay System (RPS), in use since the 1970s, by adopting a commercial off-the-shelf solution based on Oracle PeopleSoft 9.1 software. The primary objectives included centralizing pay services to achieve projected annual savings of $78.1 million by fiscal year 2016–2017, reducing the number of pay offices from 29 to one, and improving efficiency for approximately 300,000 public servants across 101 departments. In July 2009, Cabinet approved funding of $122.9 million for pay consolidation and $186.6 million for the pay modernization component, later split into Phoenix for payroll and My GCHR for functions, a separation that increased project complexity. Contracting for the system integrator role was awarded to IBM Canada in June 2011 for an initial $274 million, though budget constraints capped expenditures at $155 million, necessitating the deferral or removal of over 100 functionalities, including critical ones like retroactive pay adjustments and email notifications for errors. Centralization efforts advanced with the selection of , as the site for the new Pay Centre in August 2010, which opened in March 2012 and was intended to handle up to 184,000 pay accounts in its first phase, though capacity assessments underestimated the volume of transactions. Development formally began in December 2012, with initial Phoenix design completed by June 2014, but fiscal pressures from 2012 onward led to further scope reductions amid over 2,500 change orders by 2015. Testing preparations revealed significant shortcomings, as a planned pilot with was shifted to internal testing by in spring 2015 and ultimately cancelled in June 2015 due to unresolved defects in the software. Of the 984 identified functionalities, review of 111 led to 30 being deferred or removed; moreover, approximately 20% of tested functions failed without retesting, and no comprehensive end-to-end simulation of real-world operations occurred, despite known high risks such as privacy breaches and inadequate handling of complex pay scenarios like retroactive adjustments. Oversight was limited, with no independent verification conducted; an was planned but never executed, and a January 2016 review by S.i. Systems lacked full independence while identifying 69 defects, including 19 major ones. Despite these issues, including a pre-launch backlog of 95,600 pay requests affecting 35,900 employees as of February 2016, senior officials deemed the system ready after a mid-September 2015 delay shifted the rollout from late 2015 to February and April 2016, proceeding without addressing core complexities or engaging departments adequately on risks. The Modernization Advisory Council confirmed readiness in 2016, underestimating the understatement of project risks from the outset, which the Office of the later described as stemming from decisions that prioritized timelines and budgets over thorough validation.

2016 Launch and Phased Expansion

The Phoenix pay system was implemented by (PSPC) as the modernization component of the Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative, which had been approved in 2009 to consolidate pay services at the Miramichi Pay Centre and replace legacy systems. By early 2016, pay advisors for 46 departments and agencies had been centralized at the Miramichi facility, which opened in 2012, setting the stage for the system's deployment across federal public service payroll processing. The rollout occurred in two phases without a preceding pilot, as a planned pilot was cancelled in June 2015 due to unresolved defects. The first phase launched on February 24, 2016, migrating approximately 120,000 employees from 34 departments and agencies onto Phoenix. This initial expansion covered a significant portion of the federal workforce, including entities such as Canadian Heritage. The second phase followed on April 21, 2016, bringing the remaining 67 departments and agencies online and adding about 170,000 more employees, for a total of roughly 290,000 public servants transitioned to the . PSPC proceeded with this phased approach despite awareness of potential vulnerabilities, such as a issue identified on January 18, 2016, which permitted managers to access unauthorized employee data. The consolidation aimed to reduce the number of pay advisors from around 1,400 to 550, centralizing operations at Miramichi to handle transactions for over 100 organizations.

Core Technical and Operational Failures

Software Limitations and Bugs

The Phoenix pay system, implemented in 2016, exhibited fundamental software limitations stemming from its design assumptions and incomplete functionality, particularly in handling the complexities of federal public service rules. It was engineered primarily for entry and processing, yet federal operations frequently required retroactive adjustments, such as for acting pay assignments, which the system could not automatically process upon launch, necessitating a deferral until March 2017. Similarly, the software failed to accommodate intricate and premium pay rules for specialized roles, including those of correctional officers—affecting approximately 10% of public servants—resulting in persistent reliance on manual interventions rather than automated calculations. Technical bugs further compounded these issues, including errors triggered by data entry during active pay calculation cycles, which corrupted processing and prompted temporary restrictions on system access for up to five days per 10-day pay period, forcing compensatory manual overrides that introduced additional inaccuracies. An revealed that of 111 key functions reviewed, 30 were either missing or deferred at , directly contributing to widespread pay discrepancies. Moreover, approximately 20% of tested functions failed validation but were not re-evaluated prior to rollout, allowing latent defects to propagate errors in production. The system's reliance on over custom-developed programs to manage an estimated unique pay rules highlighted another layer of software fragility, as these elements were inadequately vetted; by June 2017, analysis had progressed to only 6 of them, delaying identification of embedded bugs responsible for systemic pay errors. Underlying technical deficiencies included the absence of planned upgrades for the underlying platform, with vendor support scheduled to end in 2018, exacerbating long-term stability risks without provisions for patches or enhancements. These limitations were not merely incidental but arose from scope reductions imposed to adhere to a budget, prioritizing deployment timelines over comprehensive feature development, which left the software ill-equipped for the diverse, exception-heavy nature of federal payroll.

Inadequate Testing and Oversight

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) proceeded with the Phoenix pay system's implementation in February and April 2016 without conducting comprehensive end-to-end testing, despite identifying significant deficiencies during preliminary phases. Of the 111 pay-related functions originally planned, 30 were deferred or removed to adhere to the $155 million budget constraint set in spring 2012, while approximately 20% of the remaining 81 functions failed testing without subsequent retesting or resolution. A planned pilot project with one department, intended to validate system readiness, was cancelled in June 2015 after revealing major defects and instability, with no formal reassessment of the associated risks before rollout. Furthermore, no whole-system occurred, and final validation by pay advisors remained incomplete at launch, leaving critical elements such as retroactive pay processing unverified. External assessments underscored these testing shortfalls, yet PSPC executives disregarded warnings. A report dated February 11, 2016, explicitly flagged critical risks, including the absence of full testing, potential for widespread pay inaccuracies, and inadequate handling of complex scenarios, but these were not incorporated into decision-making. Phoenix project leads briefed the PSPC Deputy Minister on February 18, 2016, emphasizing adherence to budget and schedule while omitting disclosure of unresolved issues, thereby prioritizing timeline over system reliability. This approach contributed to immediate post-launch failures, as evidenced by the system's inability to process basic accurately for many of the 290,000 affected employees across 101 departments. Oversight mechanisms were structurally deficient, lacking independent review bodies to challenge PSPC's internal assessments. Project information flowed solely through Phoenix executives to the Deputy Minister, without external validation or escalation protocols for high-risk decisions, such as deploying unproven software upgrades on an unsupported platform. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), responsible for broader governance, did not enforce rigorous gates or contingency planning, including no provisions for reverting to legacy systems amid evident flaws. Internal audits were scheduled but never executed, and a January 27, 2016, review by contractor S.i. Systems—despite lacking true independence—yielded an overly optimistic endorsement contradicted by its own findings of gaps. of the Auditor General characterized the overall process as an "incomprehensible failure of and oversight," attributing it to a cultural emphasis on cost containment over functional integrity.

Scale and Nature of Pay Errors

Types of Errors Encountered

The Phoenix pay system generated a wide array of errors, primarily manifesting as overpayments, underpayments, and processing delays, affecting hundreds of thousands of federal public servants. By June 2017, unresolved pay errors totaled over $520 million, with $228 million owed to underpaid employees and $295 million recoverable from overpaid ones. These issues stemmed from the system's inability to automate complex pay rules, leading to reliance on manual interventions that compounded inaccuracies. Overpayments occurred frequently due to duplicate or erroneous multiple payments, such as employees receiving pay from multiple departments during transfers or unprocessed terminations resulting in continued salary issuance. In extreme cases, the system issued outlier cheques exceeding reasonable amounts, including one intercepted $3.5 million payment. Overpayments also arose from failures to deduct prior advances or benefits correctly, forcing repayments of gross amounts that disrupted employees' tax filings. Underpayments were equally prevalent, particularly for variable compensation elements like , shift premiums, and acting or promotional pay, as Phoenix lacked programming for overtime data entry and complex shift schedules in departments such as Correctional Service Canada. Employees often went unpaid for these entitlements, with retroactive adjustments delayed or omitted due to late data submissions—typically 8-10 days after deadlines—and the system's rigid input requirements. By April 2017, the error rate in paycheques reached 51%, up from 30% pre-launch. Deduction and benefits errors included incorrect withholdings for taxes, pensions, and , often resulting in faulty T4 slips and disputes with agencies. The system struggled with isolation allowances, flexible scheduling premiums, and emergency salary advances, exacerbating financial hardship for affected workers. Processing delays averaged over three months for error resolutions, with 49,000 cases exceeding one year by mid-2017; acting pay requests, for instance, required manual handling in 40% of instances due to Phoenix's limitations. Persistent issues lingered into later years, with a 2023-24 revealing errors in 32% of employees' basic or acting pay, underscoring ongoing deficiencies despite remediation attempts. Overall, over 90% of paycheques contained at least one error in the system's early phases, contributing to a backlog of 596,000 pending transactions by May 2018.

Backlog Accumulation

The backlog of unresolved pay adjustment requests began accumulating rapidly after Phoenix's phased launch in and 2016, as systemic errors generated far more transactions than the pay centres could process. At launch, approximately 95,600 outstanding requests affected 35,900 employees, but by June 2017, this had ballooned to 494,534 requests impacting 152,517 employees—a fivefold increase in requests and quadrupling of affected personnel. This growth stemmed primarily from Phoenix's failure to automate complex federal pay rules, such as retroactive acting pay adjustments (comprising one in four requests) and intricate calculations, necessitating manual "exceptions" that overwhelmed compensation advisors. Pre-launch decisions exacerbated the issue: over 700 compensation advisors were eliminated in 2014 as part of centralization to the Miramichi Pay Centre, transferring a pre-existing backlog of 40,000 cases without adequate staffing to absorb incoming volume. Over 50% of transactions involved retroactive elements delayed beyond 60 days—a cultural norm in Canadian public service pay that Phoenix was not designed to handle efficiently—compounding delays from late departmental data submissions (averaging 8-10 days post-hire) and system restrictions during five of every 10 pay calculation days. Pay error rates reflected this strain, rising from 30% in April 2016 to 51% in April 2017, with unresolved errors totaling $520 million by June 2017 and 49,000 employees waiting over a year for resolution. As Phoenix expanded to additional departments through 2018, nearly 300,000 employees across over 100 entities, the backlog peaked near 500,000 requests amid secondary errors from attempted fixes and insufficient training for users. Processing times averaged over three months by mid-2017, far exceeding standards, while cultural resistance to real-time data entry by managers and poor oversight perpetuated the cycle. Although government efforts reduced the overall queue by 38% from January 2018 levels (from an estimated 627,000 transactions), accumulation continued in complex categories like maternity leave returns, terminations, and file transfers, with unresolved cases lingering for two years or more into the 2020s due to diverted resources toward overpayment recoveries and persistent software limitations.
PeriodBacklog Size (Requests/Transactions)Affected EmployeesKey Notes
February 2016 (Launch)95,60035,900Initial transferred and emerging issues.
June 2017494,534152,517Fivefold growth; $520M in errors.
~2018 Peak~500,000N/APost-expansion surge.
January 2018 Baseline~627,000 (inferred)N/APre-reduction level.

Impacts and Consequences

Effects on Public Servants

The Phoenix pay system's errors resulted in widespread underpayments, overpayments, and delayed compensation for federal public servants, affecting approximately 80 percent of the roughly 290,000 employees by mid-2018. Employees frequently experienced months without paychecks, incorrect salary amounts, or abrupt deductions, leading to immediate financial strain such as reliance on credit cards, loans, or food banks. In severe cases, workers lost homes, vehicles, and savings, with some facing eviction or bankruptcy due to unresolved discrepancies. These disruptions extended to personal and familial hardships, including strained relationships, inability to meet , and forfeited opportunities like career advancements or timely retirements. Over 200,000 public servants and their families reported severe impacts, with compensation programs later established for eligible claims involving documented losses such as interest on debts or relocation costs. Public service unions documented cases where employees endured prolonged stress from chasing corrections, exacerbating workload pressures amid the system's backlog. Mental health consequences were significant, with reports of anxiety, depression, and in extreme instances, suicides attributed to the unrelenting pay uncertainties. Employee surveys indicated diminished trust in government payroll processes, with morale and efficiency hampered across the . As of 2023–24, 32 percent of employees still encountered errors in basic or acting pay, perpetuating a cycle of frustration and administrative burden. Nine years post-launch in 2025, persistent issues have eroded confidence, with unions criticizing slow remediation and inadequate accountability.

Broader Government and Economic Ramifications

The implementation of the Phoenix pay system led to widespread operational disruptions across federal departments and agencies, as managers and compensation staff were required to allocate significant resources to addressing pay errors rather than core duties. By June 2017, the backlog of outstanding pay requests had grown to 494,500 cases, a fivefold increase since the system's February 2016 launch, affecting over 150,000 public servants—quadrupling the initial figure of 35,900 impacted employees. To manage this, departments hired or reallocated over 1,400 additional staff, offsetting the planned elimination of 1,200 pay advisor positions, while expending $60 million in fiscal year 2016–17 and projecting another $140 million over the subsequent two years on remediation efforts. These diversions strained departmental capacities, with average processing times exceeding three months and nearly 49,000 cases lingering over a year, contributing to unresolved errors totaling $520 million by mid-2017. Phoenix's inefficiencies further hampered government productivity, as the system proved less capable than its 40-year-old predecessor, with pay advisors at the Miramichi Pay Centre handling only 150 files per person against an expected 200 pre-launch and 400 post-implementation. This shortfall in automation and processing speed nullified anticipated annual savings of $70 million from centralization and staff reductions, instead imposing ongoing unplanned costs and workloads that elevated stress levels among advisors and reduced overall output. Departments reported heightened administrative burdens, with 51% of employees experiencing pay errors by April 2017—up from 30% the prior year—potentially delaying non-payroll functions such as policy execution and service provision to citizens. Longer-term ramifications included diminished employee and heightened turnover risks, as persistent errors compromised wellness, increased workloads, and fostered dissatisfaction, damaging the public service's for reliability. The noted that these issues handicapped efficiency, with greater exposure to Phoenix problems correlating to elevated intentions to quit among public servants, exacerbating recruitment and retention challenges in a sector handling critical national functions. Economically, beyond direct expenditures, the resource reallocation and productivity losses represented opportunity costs, underscoring risks in core administrative systems and prompting caution in future government IT initiatives.

Total Financial Costs to Taxpayers

The Phoenix pay system's failures have imposed substantial direct financial burdens on Canadian taxpayers, encompassing development overruns, remediation expenditures, employee compensation, and elevated operating costs beyond initial projections. The original project, approved in 2009 with a of $309.2 million for modernizing processing, escalated significantly due to flaws and subsequent errors. By 2018, historical costs through that period totaled $1,050.7 million, including $380.9 million in planned operations and $360.6 million in unplanned expenditures driven by early pay discrepancies. Remediation efforts, particularly backlog processing and error resolution, represent the largest component of costs. As of June 2025, these activities alone have cost approximately $5.1 billion, according to Alex Benay, Associate Deputy Minister of , reflecting expenditures on additional staffing, overtime, and manual interventions to address mispayments affecting over 400,000 cases at peak. This figure excludes broader systemic stabilization but captures the incremental expenses from onward, far surpassing projections of $60.6 million for one-time fixes and $326.6 million annually in unplanned operations. Compensation payments to affected public servants add further to the tally, with over $711 million disbursed by mid-2020s for grievances, settlements, and class-action resolutions related to underpayments, delayed adjustments, and financial hardships. Unrecovered overpayments, estimated at over $520 million outstanding as of June 2017, contribute to net losses, as recovery rates remain incomplete despite efforts. Ongoing annual operating costs, originally intended to yield savings of up to $78 million yearly, instead incurred hundreds of millions in extras for supplemental systems and contract extensions through 2025.
Cost CategoryEstimated AmountTime PeriodSource
Initial Development & Implementation$309.2 million2009 approvalGovernment records
Historical Total (incl. unplanned ops)$1.05 billion2009–2018TBS response to AG
Backlog & Error Remediation$5.1 billion2016–June 2025PSPC official statement
Employee Compensation & Settlements>$711 millionUp to 2020sUnion and government reports
Annual Unplanned Operating (est.)$326.6 million/yearPost-2018 projectionTBS estimate
These figures, drawn from government audits and departmental disclosures, underscore a cumulative taxpayer expense exceeding $5 billion by mid-2025, with potential for additional outlays during the transition to a replacement system. Independent audits, such as those by the Office of the Auditor General, highlight inadequate initial oversight as a causal factor in , though full for unrecovered funds remains unresolved.

Government Remediation Efforts

Immediate Post-Launch Responses

The Phoenix pay system was launched on February 24, 2016, initially covering 34 federal departments and approximately 120,000 public servants. Almost immediately, the system exhibited defects, including the absence of automated functionalities for processing retroactive pay adjustments and certain employee-specific rules, necessitating manual interventions by compensation advisers to issue corrections. (PSPC), responsible for the system's operation, relied on a pre-existing but untested distributed to departments, which emphasized manual processing as a fallback but provided limited guidance for department-specific adaptations. Despite reports of pay errors affecting a significant portion of initial users—reaching about 30% by early April 2016—the government proceeded with the second rollout phase on April 21, 2016, extending Phoenix to 67 additional departments and 170,000 more employees without halting expansion. This decision contributed to a rapid accumulation of unresolved transactions, as the system's limitations overwhelmed the centralized Pay Centre in , and existing staff capacity. In response to escalating complaints, PSPC initiated a review of Phoenix processes in May 2016 by engaging PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), although the consultancy's full involvement was delayed until the fall. By summer 2016, PSPC implemented targeted remediation steps, including the rehiring of compensation advisers in regional satellite offices (such as , , , and ) to handle casework overflow from the Miramichi centre, enhanced training for personnel on error identification, and the establishment of dedicated help lines for urgent pay emergencies and tax-related queries. These measures aimed to stabilize processing amid growing backlogs, but the later documented that outstanding pay requests quadrupled in the ensuing months, underscoring the reactive nature of early interventions. No comprehensive pause or reversal of the rollout occurred, as officials prioritized continuity over systemic reevaluation in the initial phase.

Ongoing Stabilization Measures

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) has implemented targeted backlog reduction initiatives as part of its integrated human resources and pay strategy, processing 30,646 of a targeted 49,000 routine backlog cases by March 26, 2025, amid an 11% drop in intake volume for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Priority cases with financial impact saw 16,633 out of 19,000 processed, achieving 88% of the target, while Shared Services Canada backlog efforts cleared 10,616 of 12,000 cases by March 31, 2025, reaching 93% closure by June 2025 with a goal of 100% by September 2025. Over 200 compensation advisors were dedicated to these efforts, contributing to the handling of an estimated additional 81,000 routine cases beyond priority backlogs. System enhancements include the upgrade of the My Human Resources (MyGCHR) system to HCM version 9.2 on December 2, 2024, which improved stability and security for handling for over 430,000 public servants until at least 2035. A Phoenix database migration completed on October 22, 2024, was validated through Cycle V5 testing from July 15 to October 10, 2024, achieving 99.99% gross pay accuracy and 99.95% net pay accuracy within a +/- $0.03 variance, with subsequent pay periods confirming stabilization absent reversion options. These measures supported a government-wide biweekly accuracy of 98.1% in 2024, alongside processing approximately 12.3 million payments totaling $38.5 billion in the 2024-2025 . Automation and process simplification form key stabilization components, with automated benefits enrollment introduced for new hires to enhance Pay Centre efficiency and reduce manual interventions. Testing of AI virtual assistants for case types such as acting assignments, leave without pay, and executive actings reached 72% of targets by focusing on high-value resolutions, while a consolidated Form GC-178 for maternity and parental leave replaced four prior forms, accompanied by instructional videos to streamline submissions. PSPC committed $45.2 million in 2024-2025 for broader modernization, including capacity improvements to avert delays, with projections to process 122,500 backlog and priority cases from April 2025 to June 2026.

Political and Accountability Controversies

Assignment of Blame Across Administrations

The Phoenix pay system's development was initiated under Stephen Harper's Conservative administration, with planning beginning as early as and formal development starting in December 2012, aimed at replacing a through consolidation at the Miramichi Pay Centre and to eliminate approximately 650 positions for projected annual savings of $70 million. However, the project under this government suffered from foundational shortcomings, including poorly defined business requirements, insufficient testing protocols, and rejection of contractor IBM's recommendations to postpone the launch due to unresolved technical risks. These decisions contributed to and a failure to align the system's design—based on entry—with departmental practices reliant on , setting the stage for widespread errors. The subsequent Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, assuming office in November 2015, inherited the troubled project but opted to proceed with implementation in two waves starting February 2016, despite internal testing revealing significant deficiencies and ongoing advisories from the prior administration's officials to delay. Trudeau publicly attributed early issues to the Harper government's mismanagement, while defending the rollout as necessary to meet modernization timelines. Critics, including opposition Conservatives, countered that the Liberals bore primary responsibility for the premature deployment without adequate safeguards or parallel operations with the legacy system, exacerbating pay disruptions for over 120,000 employees in the initial phase. Auditor General Michael Ferguson's 2018 report on the project's root causes identified lapses in governance, risk assessment, and accountability across that predated the 2016 launch but persisted through inadequate post-implementation adjustments, labeling the overall failure "incomprehensible" and symptomatic of deeper cultural issues in federal rather than isolated partisan errors. Public sector unions, such as the , have advocated for a national inquiry to apportion blame beyond administrations, emphasizing bureaucratic incentives for cost-cutting under Harper—such as aggressive consolidation targets—and the Liberals' reluctance to halt momentum despite evident flaws, with performance bonuses paid to executives involved in both phases. This shared culpability underscores how successive governments prioritized fiscal efficiencies and deadlines over rigorous validation, prolonging remediation costs exceeding $2.2 billion by 2022.

Role of Unions and Contractor Accountability

Unions representing federal public servants, such as the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), played a central role in addressing Phoenix-related pay errors through collective grievances and negotiations. PSAC filed policy grievances challenging the government's unilateral recovery of overpayments without adequate notice or information to affected employees, arguing violations of collective agreements. In June 2019, unions including PSAC finalized an agreement with the government providing compensation for pain and suffering caused by Phoenix issues from February 2016 to October 2017, with payments averaging $2,500 per eligible employee. By 2020, a damages agreement extended remedies for grievances filed prior, covering additional harms like lost interest on underpayments. Unions continued advocacy into 2024-2025, demanding further compensation for ongoing errors and criticizing insufficient testing in Phoenix's replacement. These efforts resulted in class-action settlements separate from union negotiations, such as the 2025 approval of the for non-unionized employees, compensating moral damages from Phoenix implementation. However, unions highlighted systemic failures, including inadequate government engagement, which prolonged resolutions; PSAC resources encouraged individual grievances for persistent issues like incorrect pay stubs. While securing financial remedies, unions did not alter Phoenix's core design flaws, focusing instead on employee protections amid what they described as outsourcing priorities over internal capacity. IBM Canada, as the primary contractor selected in 2011 to implement Phoenix using software, faced scrutiny for design and operational shortcomings but limited formal accountability. The initial contract, valued at $5.7 million, expanded through 39 amendments to $185 million by 2017, with further extensions totaling nearly $2 billion in federal contracts despite failures. officials asserted was held responsible under contract terms for fixes, yet no public lawsuits or significant penalties against emerged; instead, $129 million was awarded since for ongoing support. Conflicts arose from 's involvement in the business case alongside consultants like , raising implementation integrity concerns without resolved penalties. Accountability gaps persisted, as Phoenix's projected $78 million savings in licensing fees turned into billions in remediation costs borne by taxpayers, with contractors retaining payments amid critiques of inadequate oversight. No evidence indicates contractor-led reforms or clawbacks proportional to errors affecting over 600,000 employees, underscoring reliance on contractual remediation over punitive measures.

Replacement and Future Outlook

Search for Alternatives

Following the persistent operational failures of the Phoenix pay system, launched in 2016, the pursued alternatives emphasizing (COTS) software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to replace Phoenix and consolidate approximately 30 fragmented HR systems into a unified platform. This approach prioritized acquiring proven vendor products over custom development to avoid the customization pitfalls that contributed to Phoenix's breakdowns, such as inadequate handling of collective agreements and pay rule complexities. Initial assessments of potential replacements began in 2018, with a focus on vendors capable of supporting 17 critical payroll functions and 11 prioritized HR capabilities, alongside evaluations of 14 additional HR features. By 2021, a shortlist of pre-qualified SaaS providers—Dayforce (from Ceridian, now Dayforce Inc.), Workday, and SAP—was evaluated for fit against federal requirements, including data migration feasibility, cloud extensibility for unique pay rules, and integration with existing government infrastructure. Dayforce emerged as the leading option due to its demonstrated ability to address core payroll and HR needs through configurable extensions, though challenges like data quality issues and departmental readiness were flagged as ongoing risks. A 2025 validated proceeding with under a "buy" model, recommending phased testing and configuration investments totaling hundreds of millions to adapt the platform, including development of a centralized using AI for improved accuracy. No hybrid or in-house build options advanced beyond preliminary review, as the emphasis remained on leveraging expertise to minimize the high residual risks of cost overruns and implementation delays observed in prior efforts. This selection process, informed by procurement plans announced in 2018 and contracts awarded starting in 2021, underscored a shift toward standardized, scalable solutions amid Phoenix's cumulative remediation costs exceeding $2 billion by 2025.

Adoption of Dayforce and 2025 Status

In June 2025, the Government of Canada announced its decision to proceed with Dayforce, a cloud-based human resources and payroll platform developed by Dayforce Inc. (formerly Ceridian), as the core solution to replace the Phoenix pay system. This followed a feasibility assessment completed earlier in 2025, which evaluated the practicality of implementing Dayforce government-wide to integrate HR functions and payroll processing for approximately 300,000 federal public servants. The selection aimed to address Phoenix's longstanding issues with errors, overpayments, and underpayments by leveraging Dayforce's modular design for phased adoption, with an initial focus on configuration, testing, and departmental readiness confirmation. The adoption process includes allocating $135 million from Budget 2024 to support Dayforce's development and integration, emphasizing a gradual rollout over at least two years to mitigate risks encountered during Phoenix's 2016 launch. Departments will onboard progressively, beginning with pilot testing to ensure compatibility with existing HR systems and compliance with federal privacy and security standards. (PSAC) members have voiced concerns during roadshows, citing potential data privacy risks and the need for robust employee input, though government officials maintain that extensive consultations informed the feasibility findings. As of October 2025, remains in the pre-implementation phase, with ongoing final build, testing, and customization to handle complexities like variable pay rates and retroactive adjustments that plagued Phoenix. Full operational replacement is projected beyond 2027, contingent on successful pilots and legislative approvals for system-wide transition. The Professional Institute of the (PIPSC) has acknowledged the shift but urged vigilance to prevent recurrence of Phoenix-era disruptions.

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