A St. John’s woman says she has lost everything – her home, her livelihood and her stability – after years of problems with the notorious Phoenix government’s remuneration system, and has not received a single cent back as compensation. Joanne Nemec Osmond, 46, started with the Canada Revenue Agency in 2006 as a contractor. Each year, she was fired only to be called back the following season, in the hope that one day she would become a regular employee. In 2017, she was offered a higher paid position, but had a cape price that would ruin her home, career and finances. “They owe me cold, hard cash I earned while working, but I will never get my credit back, I will never get it [get back] “My home I had to leave to my children, the change in life,” said Nemets Osmond. “They have taken years out of my life.” Nemec Osmond is one of more than 200,000 federal employees who have been unpaid for long periods of time, paid less than expected or overpaid since the Phoenix system was created. IBM’s troubled payment system was adopted by the federal government in 2011 to replace the old system. It went online in 2016 and since then there have been countless failures, costing more than $ 2.4 billion since April. A replacement system is in the works.
Checks 0 $
Shortly after the release of the Phoenix payment system, Nemec Osmond said that it began to see reductions in its executives in various amounts, from tens of dollars to hundreds. When she called the compensation department to ask why, she said they could not tell her on what dates she was overpaid – only that it resulted in a refund. After getting a higher paying job in 2017, the problem got worse and he started receiving $ 0 checks. Anxious and unable to repay her mortgage payments, Nemec Osmond applied for employment insurance the same year. She said she was once again marginalized by the federal government’s flawed system. “Phoenix issued me an employment record that I lost six months of my employment and said I was not eligible for EI,” said Nemec Osmond. “After my test went to zero and I said I did not qualify, I became a creaking wheel.” It later acquired EI following the intervention of its deputy, the liberal Seamus O’Regan. Nemec Osmond received a T4 in the mail this year, which indicates she earned over $ 1,200 working for the CRA in 2021. However, she says her employment contract expired in 2018. (CBC) Nemec Osmond returned to work months later, but was still receiving blank checks and no one seemed to know how to help. Then, after 12 years at work, the CRA shut down its work. “I got a letter from the tax office telling me that I was not meeting the required rates of production that we were supposed to be looking at. At the time I think it was four and a half envelopes when I exceeded every other year,” he said. “I think I was just devastated. At that moment I did not know where to turn for help.” They have taken me. They are ready to take the last drops of blood.- Joanne Nemec Osmond In 2019, after the inability to pay its mortgage, the bank blocked the house where she had raised her children. Divorced from her husband, she and her two daughters now live in subsidized housing. Owes more than $ 33,000 to First National, its creditor, for “losses caused as a result [her] Predefined. “ “[We] “I built the house in ’96, he got married in ’97 and brought my two daughters home, born in 2004 and 2010, to this house,” he said. “There I had the piece on the wall that measures their heights as they grew and the memories. And it’s heartbreaking, and I still haven’t gotten over it.”
Terrible tax time
But it did not end there. Since her contract expired in 2018, Nemec Osmond has received two T4s from the CRA – one in 2019 and one in 2021, incorrectly claiming to have earned income from work in those years. In February 2020, the CRA sent her a letter stating that she owed $ 6,926.38 in overpayment. A few months later, he sent another letter saying the balance was “not accurate” and that he actually owed $ 5,925.88. CBC News looked at the documentation. The agency is now recovering this balance by taking it from Nemec Osmond’s annual tax refunds. Nemec Osmond and her husband built their dream home in 1996. By 2019, after failing to make mortgage payments, the bank confiscated the home. He now lives in a subsidized residence. (Submitted by Joanne Nemec Osmond) “It was overwhelming because I really needed that money,” she said, adding that a few days later she received another T4 in the mail stating that she had earned $ 1,800 from her work from the CRA. “They are taking me. They have taken me. They are ready to take the last drops of blood.” Nemec Osmond does not believe that the federal government will ever be able to calculate exactly what owes it because of how complicated the mistakes were. And regardless of the amount, he said he would never get back what he lost. A civil servant holds a sign begging Prime Minister Justin Trinto to resolve problems with the Phoenix’s pay system during a protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ottawa Secret Council on October 12, 2017. (Justin Tang / The Canadian Press ) “I do not think they could restore stability and security to my children’s lives. I can not drive past my old house. I still tear and I was never for that,” said Nemec Osmond. “But that changed me and changed the dynamics of our whole family.” The federal government has promised to provide $ 2,500 in general compensation to eligible employees and announced further compensation in late 2021 for individuals such as Nemec Osmond who have suffered severe financial and personal hardship. Nemec Osmond said she had not yet received compensation, but received an email confirming that her claim for serious damages was being considered.
Start research, says the association
The union, which represents many federal employees, the Public Services Alliance of Canada, said tens of thousands of public sector workers continue to be affected by pay problems. Urges the federal government to call for a national inquiry. Colleen Coffey, PSAC Atlantic Regional Executive Vice President, was not available for interview until the time of publication. . In a statement, Coffey said outstanding pay issues in Phoenix had risen during the pandemic, to a total of 137,000 cases beyond the normal workload this March, compared with 94,000 two years earlier. “We also know that current pay center staff are simply not capable of handling high, complex payroll volumes,” Coffey wrote. “Working with compensation with a broken pay system is a difficult and stressful job, and it has caused problems with recruitment and retention.” PSAC members protest in front of the offices of the Federal Ministry of Finance on Elgin Street in Ottawa on February 28, 2018. (Amanda Pfeffer / CBC) Nemec Osmond said her attempts to contact her union were unsuccessful. However, Coffey said the Phoenix payroll team works daily with public sector employees to “understand how and why this happens to them.” In a statement, Shared Services Canada said it was testing a new payroll and human resources program using “lessons learned” from Phoenix. A spokesman for the federal agency said it was a “human-centered, accessible and cloud-based human resources and payment solution”. Public Services and Procurement Canada did not respond to CBC questions within the deadline. “A lot of people feel like Phoenix is over. I did not choose to stop working. I certainly did not choose to lose my home and move into subsidized housing,” said Nemec Osmond. “It needs to be fixed. I need someone to fix it.” Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
