VICTORIA — The $200 million Integrated Case Management system has been experiencing critical failures for a week, putting children at risk, and throwing families living in poverty into chaos.

Instead of being honest with the public about what is going on and outlining their plan to fix the problems, the B.C. Liberals can’t even keep their story straight on what’s wrong and when it will be fixed.

What the Liberals say: “The system is back up and running.” – Minister of Citizen Services Andrew Wilkinson, CHNL, May 7, 2014

The Truth: “This morning yet again I was told: ‘Oh, it’s fixed, but it’s intermittent.’ Yet the front-line staff is calling me saying: ‘It can’t be fixed because I can’t use it.'” – Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond, Hansard, May 7, 2014

What the Liberals say: The system isn’t down, it’s just intermittent.

The Truth: “Well, the latest is, and you’ve basically laid it out, that this program has been down or semi-down for the best part of better than a week now. Even when it comes up, it appears to be very slow and arduous in terms of the work that our members can do inputting files and, indeed, retrieving files, and then, bang, it will crash again, and when they go back and try and get in again, most of the work that they have done is gone now so they’ve got to start over.” – Darryl Walker, CKNW, May 7, 2014

What the Liberals say: This is just a hiccup. “To say there won’t ever be hiccups, is something we can’t do.” – Minister of Social Development Don McRae, CKNW, May 7, 2014

The Truth: “These aren’t just hiccups. This has been a disaster.” – Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond, Hansard, May 7, 2014

What the Liberals say: “If there’s an urgent crisis, by all means, go into the offices still. The staff are working hard. They’re using that traditional paper and pencil method.” – Minister of Social Development Don McRae, CBC, May 7, 2014

The Truth: “We don’t have access to any paper files anymore, so everything is in the computer. We don’t have file numbers. We only have the person in front of me on the counter saying they’re in need, they need help, and we have no way to help them.” – Caller to CKNW who is a front-line worker, May 7, 2014