Canada's critical IT systems at risk -- sort of...

Glocky

Glocky

Drinking your tears
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/Canada+critical+systems+risk/6348206/story.html

The story kind of amuses me because of two reasons.

One, I recall that Chretian before he stepped down/retired, had a vision to update/amalgamate IT systems that this story reports on but was flamed for "spending to create a legacy" and ultimately it never happened. I wonder if it will be viewed as a good idea now.

Two, CRA has already secured TB funding to update the T1 system (the backbone of everything related to taxpayers, from benefits to filing to ident services) over a 10 year period (1st year done - Options Analysis/Detailed Business requirements). As much as I feel our IT Branch sometimes holds the rest of us ransom, the T1 project team (both function program area + IT) seems to be doing a good job so far...

Still waiting to see what comes out of the Federal Budget March 29th as I my recommendation to senior management got some pretty good traction (i.e. if the Feds change our programs, instead of implementing the changes to our paper processes, modernize where possible and go paperless too if possible -- I know that isn't ground breaking idea, but it was cool that my words made it to the Agency level focus for discussion).

All that aside, we are also 1 or 2 years away from personal taxes being pre-populated with all your slips' data (T4, registered charities' donations, etc.) on an online CRA https solution. It will likely make the most sense for single filers to use, as tax preparation software will still likely be better at maximizing family refunds etc.

Anyway, all this to say I guess that despite this article, CRA is generally doing the right things to be efficient and modern, so please help out my filing electronically and checking "Yes" to the Elections Canada information box and not checking the box for the GST/HST credit if you know for sure that you don't qualify *and* that during the next year you still won't qualify. The legislation forces us to issue a notice to ineligible applicants... so that's postage + paper + printing + envelope x # of ineligible applicants. It adds up... especially since we really don't get a discount from Canada Post for our mailings.

I expect some flaming :mad: but if it's more like a debate and less like a circular logic argument, then all is good.
 
Ghett0

Ghett0

DARKLY Regular
Glocky said:
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/technology/Canada+critical+systems+risk/6348206/story.html

The story kind of amuses me because of two reasons.

One, I recall that Chretian before he stepped down/retired, had a vision to update/amalgamate IT systems that this story reports on but was flamed for "spending to create a legacy" and ultimately it never happened. I wonder if it will be viewed as a good idea now.
Click to expand...

A lot of Chretien's ideas got that kind of treatment. Like how he was a spend-a-holic, and yet when Stephen Harper took over, he took a balanced budget and turned it into a $60 billion deficit that had no tangibile improvement to any of the services that we count on as Canadians in his first year.

And yet the "intellectuals" in Ottawa tell me all the time about how he's a much more financially responsible PM than Chretien was.

The irony of Ottawa and the self-proclaimed politically savvy amongst us is that they often talk a great game about the party they are gunning for (often Conservatives) and how they are so great at spending our tax dollars, and then months after the election, they are crying foul for all the foolish decisions being made, when they are the ones who help vote in the government making those decisions.

The latest round of elections was hilarious as most of my friends are currently holding their breath waiting to get hired on to the government. So, they determined, they would vote Conservative who are "Smart financially and doing a good job"....

Which is interesting, giving the Conservatives have been enacting hiring freezes, wage freezes, and are now scaling back the Public Service with mutli-billion dollar cuts. And yet, these people do not understand why that government job never materializes.....

The people I know are entirely too stupid for words. :S
 
Ghett0

Ghett0

DARKLY Regular
PS, I have all my bills and tax refunds set to direct-deposit rather than snail mail. Why waste paper and break my postman's back? I burn all my financial documents as I'm done with them anyhow.
 
Glocky

Glocky

Drinking your tears
Yay to DD (Direct Deposit)
I am generally a small l 'liberal', and in the past I have voted for a balance of best local candidate/party platform/party leader which has certainly lead me to non big L Liberal votes.
I am really curious to see this budget, Harper's first with a majority, as his minority budgets were aimed at sticking to a vote, not to actually achieving anything significant.
His first budget with the 5 pillars (I think he did 4 /5) was the only focused one, even if I didn't agree with all the items.
 
Ghett0

Ghett0

DARKLY Regular
The axe has been falling at DND for a while now. The only thing that shocks me about the Conservatives policies in the past little while is how they kept a monster deficit such a big secret. Then I remember, they have all the newspapers in their pocket, and it alllll becomes clear. That, and the military action in Afghanistan really won them the hearts of the small town pseudo-racist old-school rednecks.

Gotta hand it to them, though. It may have been dirty, but winning small towns for the majority was not only cheap, but it worked. :S

I love how, once the election was long over and no one really cared, they finally copped to breaching the campaign spending limit they set themselves by a few million dollars.

Fuckin Cuntservatives.
 
Ghett0

Ghett0

DARKLY Regular
Oh ya, that sword in your avatar is seriously win.

Kinda looks like mine, but all black.
 
$alvador

$alvador

TD Member
I really wouldn't be surprised at a complete breakdown of services. Living in the GTA I've seen so much government facilities fall into a disheveled state or outright abandonment. Everything is falling apart but nobody is really paying attention because everyone is heedlessly chasing after money and trying to keep as much of it from the government as possible. Everyone in our society is apathetic because they're either white and middle class and just rich enough to not give a fuck, or poor and immigrant and can't afford to bite the hand that feeds them. We're just one good jolt from anarchy, IMHO

Ghett0 said:
I burn all my financial documents as I'm done with them anyhow.
Click to expand...

it's gonna suck if you get audited!
 
Ghett0

Ghett0

DARKLY Regular
$alvador said:
it's gonna suck if you get audited!
Click to expand...

First off, I'm a good little white boy who pays his tax on time, so I doubt it, BUT!

I burn bank and credit card statements (before I called them and told them to stop wasting time sending them to me), but I keep all my pay stubs in pretty little envelopes labelled by year along with my charitable donation stubs and all that. The only thing I DON'T keep is the old bus passes I claim on that Transportation credit, which is hilarious because the year that shit came out, the price of my bus pass jumped by the precise value of that rebate.

Dalton McGuinty. What a fuckin tool. I met him once. I voted for him when he still had principles. Then he lost that election and got all butt-hurt about it and became the typical "Talk out of both sides of your mouth and lie both ways" Toronto politician. After all that horseshit about Quebec separating, what REALLY needs to happen is for Toronto and the GTA to separate into it's own province called "The Center of the Universe" and run itself like a republic while the rest of Ontario can govern itself out of Ottawa.
 
dead mike

dead mike

TD Member, Legend, Puncher of Faces, Chatbox King
so many useless departments, and u go to the government offices with all the money we spend on them they look like shit to boot
 
Ghett0

Ghett0

DARKLY Regular
dead mike said:
so many useless departments, and u go to the government offices with all the money we spend on them they look like shit to boot
Click to expand...

Try working with the government in Ottawa, dude. It's enough to make you want to slit your wrists via paper cut.

Glocky, what department do you work with if you dont mind me asking?
 
Glocky

Glocky

Drinking your tears
CRA. And on my team, we had (as of April 2, 2012) only one less than effective member, but she's taking an assignment. So one out of 11 is not bad. Fits into my thoughts that CRA could cut 10% and be as effective, if it was the right (i.e. the bottom) 10%.

Me? I rated "Exceeds" (highest rating) last performance cycle, not bad for an acting sr. program officer. PM05/SP08 (Passed a process but it's for another Branch, so my DG is going to accelerate her plans for a process for our Branch so she doesn't lose me. :)

I most certainly am not the gov't worker that people in the comment section on news sites make our *all* gov't workers to be. Heck with that one women gone, nobody on my team is.
My manager is an ex-IBM consultant and she is seriously top notch. We have 3 CGAs on the team and 1 CMA, and then there's me who can do that financial shit, but it's just one of the things I can do. Analysis, write, financials, Excel, CUBE (Cognos PowerPlay), etc.... lol. I prefer to work smarter than harder, or at least before harder... certainly being a free thinker is part of my advantage. I tend to shoot people who have the "but we've always done it this way mentality."

BTW, there are stealth cuts in this Budget. CRA is only allowed to seek incremental funding for 3 items, even though there's nearly 100 changes to the Tax Act. That and we have not received funding for pay increases for 3 years, so that's a 1.5% year over year cut, plus the measures in this Budget. I think we are ahead of the gov't curve, so realistically, you'll still get your e-filed tax refund in 5-10 business days :)
 
dead mike

dead mike

TD Member, Legend, Puncher of Faces, Chatbox King
The CRA being effective.... no shit, government highwaymen, take money all day under the threat of jail time for those that don't pay, that is an excellent business model.

It's where the money goes after that causing problems, I bet that most revenue goes to interest expense.
 
Glocky

Glocky

Drinking your tears
dead mike said:
The CRA being effective.... no shit, government highwaymen, take money all day under the threat of jail time for those that don't pay, that is an excellent business model.

It's where the money goes after that causing problems, I bet that most revenue goes to interest expense.
Click to expand...
Pay money all day too. All benefit cheques and refunds for income tax.
Guess who writes/updates the Tax Act? Parliament, not us. Who threatens the jail time? Not us, Canadian law in conjunction with the Tax Act.
I wish we had a flat % tax, even though that would reduce the number of employees needed and maybe cost me my job, because a flat % tax is the only fair model.
What %? No idea, depends how under taxed the rich are and how over taxed the poor are... I know it would be less than the current 29% or so that I pay in Fed. tax alone.
 
Ghett0

Ghett0

DARKLY Regular
It's interesting, I read in a few articles the past few days (since a lot of newspaper writers fancy themselves intelligent when they write about politics) that Harper is alienating some of his caucus with his move towards the center. In the past, he could attribute it to having to pass a budget that wouldn't ruffle enough feathers to have it voted down, but there was a lot of surprise to the hard-right conservative supporters that, with a majority, Harper is passing a somewhat center of right budget rather than going hard-right and posting a slash-and-burn budget.

They drew a lot of comparisons to Jean Chrétien in that respect, which is the LAST comparison I ever would have expected for Stephen Harper. They even speculated on a rise of anti-PC sentiment in Alberta and the birth of the Reform Party v 2.0 for all the hardcore Right wingers who want to destroy welfare, open the markets, and eliminate all tax for anyone who isn't poor as punishment for their under-performance in the financial world.

I think it's more speculation and painting rosy pictures on the Conservative government than anything else, but it was an interesting read. I'd be interested to hear what Alberta Right-Wingers and other staunch Conservatives think of this most recent budget. (I'm your typical middle of the road yet environmentally conscious new age hippie who wants green energy and less subsidies and tax breaks on oil. In other words, I voted NDP, but I'm pretty sure I'm jumping off the bandwagon now that Jack Layton is dead. I see bad things coming our way, and Bob Rae is a Liberal with a head on his shoulders and who leans far enough right not to be a hippie idealist with his head up his ass.)

The only thing I don't really support is the legalization of marijuana because, in practice, it's not the license to get high that most people think it is. Then again, I don't smoke anymore, so it's not a big deal to me, but anyhow....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top