Debates of August 15, 2007 (day 10)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to the problems experienced by the Department of Human Resources. It does seem to be an endless list. I don’t purport to be any expert on the subject of software for human resource applications, but I know that our government has spent millions of dollars to ensure an effective and efficient system. That is definitely not what we have today.

Oracle, or the system formally known as PeopleSoft, is what is known as an enterprise resource planning system. There are several problems related to these ERP systems. In general, they are expensive; turnover of knowledgeable personnel makes them difficult to run well and consistently; installation is expensive; some programs also require costly annual licence fees; switching to another system is very costly; there are frequent compatibility problems; and, finally, an inefficiency in one of the departments can affect the overall performance of the system. These are only a few of the problems that I know of, Mr. Speaker.

Given the problems inherent in this enterprise resource planning system, given the problems with PeopleSoft which are well known and there have been many law suits launched against these folks, it makes me wonder why we bought into one of these systems, particularly this one, in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard my constituents complain about their personal banking information being exposed, requests for leave being published across the government e-mail system. That is if they are even able to enter leave at all, as the system has been down so very frequently. Mr. Speaker, employees are even finding mistakes on their paycheques. A lot of them have lost faith with the flawed system that is responsible for keeping track of their pay and benefits and keeping their personal information confidential.

Positive time recorders have suffered the most. These are employees such as nurses whose hours of work fluctuate, so they enter the hours manually into the system. Why are we causing needless stress to these employees who are just trying to get the pay that they deserve? This is a very serious situation, Mr. Speaker. I think this government needs to respond when employees begin to doubt the ability of their employer, this government, to handle the most basic functions: their pay and their benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that Minister Dent has apologized to the employees of the GNWT today in his Minister’s statement. However, Mr. Speaker, I still have questions about this. We had expended millions of dollars on this system. We had tried to tell the Minister of some of the problems. I, for one, have been absolutely categorically contradicted and denied access to correct information. Incorrect information has come to the Minister through his deputy. I don’t think we have begun to tally up the cost to this government of this difficulty. I am going to have questions for the Minister about that today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, like my colleague from Hay River, would like to highlight the concerns about the PeopleSoft program. Mr. Speaker, the word Oracle, the name of our program here for pay and benefits, its definition is authoritative person who defines the future, Mr. Speaker. Did they foresee the thousands and thousands of dollars that would continue to be spent and paid for this debunked or crazy program that does not work, Mr. Speaker? Maybe that is what they saw all along.

Mr. Speaker, GNWT employees have been unable to enter leave for days on end. Their reports aren’t entered properly. Manual pay hours have to be put in by themselves or sent even off to other people. They do not know. Confidential and personal information is out there, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, even as of late, I know an e-mail that was sent out this week to groups of employees who had everyone’s pay and time leave still outstanding. So, Mr. Speaker, this is still happening, and so there continues to be massive technical errors and reworkings of the system that has continued to go denied.

Mr. Speaker, we need to focus on where we are going and what are we going to do. Mr. Speaker, this program seems unfriendly. I should say it seems fully unfriendly from the very beginning, Mr. Speaker. For instance, this system allows you to get into a program, enter a few hours and then when you are exiting, it doesn’t verify or approve of what you put in. So in other words, you can leave and short your own paycheque without even realizing it. What a nightmare this has become for people who live cheque to cheque, who have child support payments or mortgage payments that come due and the money isn’t there, Mr. Speaker. Oops doesn’t put milk on the table and sorry doesn’t work for a lot of banks. There is a lot of frustration out there on even the rollout of this program. So even that is questionable looking back to the source of the problem.

Mr. Speaker, we want an organization that works. We want the GNWT to recognize that personal information needs to be protected. All we heard is, yes, we fixed it. We heard that three months ago and it still seems to be an issue. So what are we going to do? Rather than spinning our wheels, Mr. Speaker, and begging for blood on the street, which some of my colleagues may be asking for, we should be saying, how are we going to fix this? If we can’t, let’s dump this program because it seems to be a waste of time and a waste of taxpayers' money.

Mr. Speaker, the apology given by the Human Resources Minister today, I will accept and I will move forward. But the fact is, we have to stop defending a program that does not work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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