The Trudeau government should train its own tech workers to run and maintain the troubled Phoenix pay system — and stop relying on IBM, the technology giant that built the troubled system — says a federal union leader.

Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, has appealed to the working group of cabinet ministers appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fix Phoenix to train 30 to 40 federal IT workers to take over the system’s repair and maintenance.

Daviau wants the government to cut its ties with IBM once the company fixes the technical problems currently dogging the system — problems that have seen large numbers of federal public servants overpaid, underpaid or not paid at all — and after the current implementation contact expires in 2019. The government chose PeopleSoft — off-the-shelf software — for its new pay system, and hired IBM to adapt it for government payroll.

The government has so far agreed to pay IBM about $185 million.

“We know that the government’s decision to outsource this project wholesale to IBM was a mistake,” said Daviau in a recent letter to members. “I got the sense that the ministers are finally coming to the same conclusion and that’s why they’re starting to involve government IT professionals to find the necessary solutions.”

Daviau is pressing for IBM to now start “transferring knowledge” to federal IT workers so they are ready to take over when the contract expires.

PIPSC represents more than 57,000 professionals working in government, including 13,000 IT workers who work on federal computer systems.

Daviau’s call for the feds to dump IBM and train public servants comes as the government assesses the results of a ‘request for information’ issued to gauge the industry’s interest in maintaining Phoenix once IBM’s current contract expires.

Daviau, a fierce opponent of contracting-out, said relying on IBM would only exacerbate the problems and tie the government to “a multinational corporation for the life of the system” when public servants could do the job — and for less money.

Daviau earlier wrote to both Treasury Board Minister Scott Brison and Public Services Minister Judy Foote to protest the decision to give an ongoing maintenance contract to IBM or any other supplier. A big worry for the union is the possibility that IBM could maintain servers — now managed by Shared Services Canada — overseas. Such a move would raise concerns about the security and privacy of public servants’ personal information.

“The previous government’s decision to go with an outsourced solution for the pay system has proven to be ill-fated and misguided. By outsourcing ongoing maintenance, we fear this error will be greatly expanded and new risks incurred,” Daviau wrote.

In her response to Daviau’s letter, Foote said the government was interested in learning how it could “leverage” the skills and talent of its own technology workers.

Daviau said she understands that five companies, including IBM, have responded to the RFI, but the government hasn’t indicated whether or when it intends to proceed with a tender call or request for proposals.

“I want it stopped,” she told iPolitics in an interview.

“I made a direct ask that they not carry on with the request for proposal … but they have been wishy-washy on that.”

Daviau said she feels Public Services and Procurement Canada, the paymaster and department responsible for Phoenix, has “shielded” IBM from publicly shouldering any responsibility for Phoenix’s foul-ups. She said IBM has gotten off easy and hasn’t had to answer for its role in how Phoenix was planned and tested, or for problems as they cropped up.

“It is important for lessons-learned that IBM be prepared to answer for its disastrous implementation so they are not repeated in future projects.”

IBM was at the centre of a legal battle over a problem-plagued payroll system for the state of Queensland, Australia when Canada went to tender for its pay project. Queensland’s attempts to sue IBM over the problems were unsuccessful.

Auditor-General Michael Ferguson has an audit of Phoenix underway and the department has another study to determine what went wrong. Daviau fears those probes will focus on the project and processes and not the technical problems that went awry.

The unions worry that Phoenix’s problems are too often characterized as foul-ups cased by compensation advisers, the pay centre or public servants, when there are still significant technical glitches to fix.

Last month, Brison weighed in with some pointed comments on IBM’s “responsibility to help us fix this.”

He told a Senate committee Phoenix was malfunctioning because of people and system issues and IBM should be an “active partner” and work closely with government to fix the system.

“IBM, as a sophisticated global company, needs to recognize that we as the government of Canada are not just an important client for IBM but there is reputational risk for IBM in not helping us fix this and doing everything they can to help us fix this,” Brison said.

So far, PSPC officials have maintained publicly that IBM is a “good partner” and has met its contractual obligations. The department has argued the big problem was that the learning curve for Phoenix, and the massive changes it brought to the workplace, were drastically underestimated.

The previous Conservative government opted in March 2014 not to proceed with the training program IBM had planned.

The Conservatives initiated the $300-million ‘pay transformation’ project, which unfolded in two parts. The first step was to consolidate the pay operations of 46 departments at a new pay centre in Miramichi, N.B. The second step was the installation of Phoenix and moving all departments to the new system in two phases.

IBM won the contract in 2011 to develop and maintain the new pay system. That contract expires in 2019.

The government has since pumped millions into fixing Phoenix; some of that money went to IBM to cover work outside the scope of its original contract. IBM has been paid $48 million in amendments since Phoenix escalated into a crisis last summer.

In an email, IBM said it performed “extensive customization” on the software the government selected for its new payroll system and it continues to work closely with the government.

“IBM continues to work in close partnership with the federal government on this project. IBM delivers high quality solutions and services to tens of thousands of clients around the world. This implementation… was no different. IBM performed extensive customization specified by the government to a commercial HR solution that the Crown had selected.”

Daviau argues the government should be “learning lessons” from botched outsourced projects for internal services such as Phoenix, a new email system and the Canada.ca website before it starts contracting out services on which Canadians rely.

“Their cloud strategy is going to also fail miserably and if they keep going this way, services like CPP and EI … that Canadians rely on could also be at risk if the trend is to contract out all IT modernization.”

The Liberals promised during the election to eliminate $10 billion a year in contract spending and return it to 2005-06 levels.

Daviau has maintained PIPSC isn’t looking for contracting jobs to be turned into full-time federal jobs. Rather, she said, the work being farmed out in modernizing IT could be done in–house if employees where given the chance and training.