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Public Services and Procurement Canada, the federal paymaster and department responsible for Phoenix, has been holding regular public briefings on efforts to fix the system and updating the size of the backlog of 80,000 files, which it has promised to eliminate by Oct. 31.

The tribunal hearing, however, is calling union officials and senior bureaucrats to testify, offering an inside look at how the project was designed, planned, implemented and rolled out in two phases in February and April.

A key witness is Rosanna Di Paola, Public Services associate assistant deputy minister of accounting, banking and compensation, who oversaw the project, starting in 2013.

Di Paola explained how Phoenix worked and how it got its name from a departmental naming contest.

She also outlined the backstop of many internal and external advisory committees created to monitor the project and to ensure problems were resolved before giving the green light to “go live” with it — including the minister’s advisory group, which included financial and IT executives from Tim Hortons and Loblaws.

She said the department’s recommendation to “go live” was approved by the powerful public service management committee of deputy ministers.

“Going live was a collective decision and we can’t make a decision that impacts 300,000 public servants and 101 departments unilaterally,” she said.

The union had made several appeals to delay or stop the rollout of Phoenix, but Alyward said he had no idea how badly it was working until the Public Services and Procurement Canada confirmed in July that more than a quarter of its employees were not getting paid properly.