'I screamed at the top of my lungs': Phoenix woes continue for seasonal worker

A Taymouth woman says she's been engaged in a Kafkaesque struggle with Service Canada and the Phoenix pay centre in order to claim employment insurance.

Roxanne Merrill-Young works six months a year for the Department of National Defence, repairing roads and watercourses after training exercises at CFB Gagetown.

Her season ended on Oct. 30, and she went to apply for employment insurance on Nov. 2, which is when her problems began.

She brought her pay stubs to an employee at the Service Canada office in Fredericton, just as she'd done the previous year to start receiving benefits.

"She said well, two weeks prior to that, they got a memo saying that they were not allowed to accept any paperwork," said Merrill-Young.

"And I said, 'Well what does that mean?' And she said, 'Well we can't take your pay stubs.'"

The employee said Merrill-Young would need to apply online for her "record of employment," also known as an ROE.

But Merrill-Young said she hasn't received a record of employment for two years. Phoenix didn't give her one.

The Phoenix pay system has suffered problems since it came into existence under the Stephen Harper government. The federal pay centre was moved to Miramichi and soon after thousands of government employees had problems with their pay, some not receiving cheques for months at a time.

The anticipated cost of fixing the system has been estimated at $2.2 billion.

ROE blues

Merrill-Young said she's only received a record of employment once, in 2016, since the pay system came into effect.

That record of employment was handwritten.

She called Phoenix, which told her to take her pay stubs to Service Canada to prove she worked for the Defence Department.

She was in a position where she needed an ROE she wasn't going to get and was told to submit pay stubs she was told wouldn't be accepted.

"When I got out and free of the [Service Canada] office and got in the lobby, I screamed at the top of my lungs that I hated Phoenix, and then I walked out the door and got in my car and cried," said Merrill-Young.

"I didn't know what to do."

Continuing problems

This isn't the first time Merrill-Young has spoken out about issues with the Phoenix payroll system. 

In 2017, she protested in front of the centre in Miramichi after missing multiple paycheques in 2016.

Later that year, she spoke out at a Prime Minister Justin Trudeau town hall in Fredericton calling the system a "nightmare."

Misunderstanding?

This time, Merrill-Young took the matter up with her Tobique-Mactaquac MP, T.J. Harvey, whose staff took her faxed pay stubs and walked across the street to the Service Canada office in Grand Falls.

She received four weeks of EI benefits on Dec. 13.

Service Canada told CBC News that, regardless of what Merrill-Young was told in Fredericton, the department does accept paper pay stubs as proof of employment.

Service Canada acknowledged the memo their employee mentioned but said it "may have been misinterpreted by some employees."

"We have reviewed and reinforced our processes … with all employees to ensure accurate understanding and prevent this type of mistake in the future. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused our clients."

As for Phoenix, the centre could not confirm why a record of employment hadn't been issued to Merrill-Young but an official said in an email it was looking to speed up the issuing of records of employment.

"As part of our efforts to stabilize the pay system, we are redesigning human resources processes, such as terminations, to speed up the processing of transactions and reduce delays in producing Record of Employments," said Charles Drouin, a spokesperson for Public Service and Procurement Canada.

"In addition, Public Services and Procurement Canada has been collaborating with Employment and Social Development Canada to establish a direct line of communication for employment insurance agents to reduce response times."

Merrill-Young said that even though she received her benefits, she's speaking out to let others know that problems with Phoenix have not been solved.