OTTAWA – After a series of clerical and accounting errors, the Public Service Pay Centre, Canada’s centralized payment facility for public servants, has accidentally compensated a federal employee $2.7 billion in transfer payments that were originally intended for the province of New Brunswick.
“I suspected there was a problem with an overpayment when my paycheque was so much higher than usual,” explained Lorrie Davenport, a casual administrative assistant with Transport Canada who received a Canada Health Transfer, Canada Social Transfer and an Equalization payment. “And I couldn’t remember any new collective agreement that stated I would get billions more in salary. Something was wrong.”
Davenport tried calling the pay centre in Miramichi but was either left on hold or disconnected. When, after two weeks of trying, she finally did get through, Canada’s largest payroll and pension administrator was unaware of the error.
“Oh, so your name isn’t ‘New Brunswick?’” asked one of the pay centre advisors. “And you weren’t born in 1867 either, eh? Well, we’re going to have to change that. I’ll start the paperwork for it right now.”
The 52-year-old from Ottawa was reassured that these errors happen quite frequently with the new Phoenix paysystem. Last week, a policy analyst from Parks Canada was given $15 million in foreign aid originally intended for Ukraine.
Davenport will continue to be paid the transfer payments into 2019, which is when the pay action request will be processed.
According to sources, New Brunswick will have to manage without the federal cash for the next few years without Employment Insurance and asking hospital patients to bring their own beds.
