How do we compare to Canada? Canadians have been told to prepare for two weeks of outages. (www.globetechnology.com/gam/Y2K/19981216/UYEARM.html) Are their utilities,etc. like a twin of ours? I know they have an electrical grid connected to ours. Do they have other grids that are not connected to ours? Wondering why Canada makes a statement like that while U.S. does not. (Koskinen says it9s because different parts of U.S. have very different rates of risk. -interview by y2ktoday editor 4/18)

-- Shivani Arjuna (odnsmall@aolj.com), April 22, 1999

Answers

I have been working on Y2K for 6 years now. For the last year I have come up to Canada every week and have been throughout the Canadian government, and in the utility and petroleum industries.

"How do we compare to Canada?"

Canada is 3 months to 2 years ahead of the U.S. (different parallel organizations are diffferent. The Prime Minister stuck it ministers rather forcefully some time back, both in their departments and in their external responsibilities. The "spin" isn't going on here, the way it is in the states. This has resulted in people getting serious about fixing things.

The "spin" in the U.S. is scaring the hell out of me. If there is good news, you can tell specific real good news, not "spin" generalities. I am convinced that "spin" has the negative effect of gettin management which controls resources and priorities to think they can "fix on failure".

"Canadians have been told to prepare for two weeks of outages. (www.globetechnology.com/gam/Y2K/19981216/UYEARM.html) Are their utilities,etc. like a twin of ours?"

Yes, except for their nuclear reactors. U.S nuclear reactors have analog safety controls, and canadian reactors have digital safety controls. There are also non safety digital systems in both reactors. There is so much "spin" going on about reactors here, in the U.S., in Europe and Russian reactors, that I can't tell what "ground truth" is.

"I know they have an electrical grid connected to ours. Do they have other grids that are not connected to ours?"

We have what, 3 grids in the U.S. I believe three of them are tied to three canadian grids (in effect, there are 2 canadian-U.S. grids). Canada also has some stand-alone grids. Canada is a NET EXPORTER of electricity to the U.S., so if the were a production shortage, they could separate from the U.S. and divert power to Canadian customers. Some Canadian utilities are fixing their systems, rolling the dates forward and leaving them their. By comparison, my power company in the D.C area, two years ago when I queried them told me it was a problem in the customer billing system. A year ago, after getting better educated on power and Y2K (I am a IT guy) they had an inventory of several thousand embedded systems which were 90% finished - no even enough for one large plant. They are still 90% finished today, according to their web site. Of course, the lack of real effort reflected by their communications with the public, could be because the engineers who are hard at work fixing real things are too busy to deal with PR guys who communicate with the public.

-- noel goyette (ngoyette@csc.com), April 22, 1999.

Hi, Noel,

Thanks for your insight. I hope you're right!

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), April 22, 1999.

Just in case this hasn't gotten to you...

Joe Boivin, former CIO of a major Canadian bank and president of the Global Millienium Foundation, has wrttten on the russkelley.com experts predictions site that you can take the percentage of remediated systems reported by the gov. in the Great White North and divide by a factor of two to get reality. Probably the same for private biz. So much for the lead. Also how do you keep people going to their jobs in bankrupt utilities? Need the post office to work to facilitate payment. I know we'll have hundreds of thousands of people drive down in an orderly fashion and pay...

Constantly amazed at this single industry focus like it matter if our/that industry is OK..

Also, why even acknowledge what a Koskinen says? His job is primarily to disinform the shepple enough to have "business as usual" right up until we can't have it anymore. Somewhere in the back of our consciousness we are in disbelief over what is being told to us by the government whose real job it is to protect its citizenery. Why was he hired in the first place if this is only "a bump in the road"? We read his PR flakery over and over again hoping that he'll "get real". We want him to do the "right thing" and tell the truth about this emminent disaster.

Sorry..not his job description.....

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), April 22, 1999.

As a I am a Canadian and have lived in much of western Canada and the
arctic we can only hope that the power and gas stays on because during the rollover as we can be in the depths of a harsh winter. Without power there is going to be alot of deaths. This is what got me interested in Y2K in the first place as most folks have no idea of how to survive in the winter. Even in Canada. In the states some of you folk worry about air conditioning.

The ice storm made a big differance to the Canadian mentality knocking out power to one of the biggest cities up here. And that is the referance point to Y2K in the great white. People took that seriously and therefore take Y2K seriously. We can only hope that are utilities are up and running. As in the states though some provinces are more ahead of others. We may never know till the time comes.

I have a web site with the Industry Canada Testimony which will give you an idea of the past efforts of Canadians. Our information has been lacking lately just as the states have. This is disappointing. The Government though has a site and it states that much of the remediation is done. Oh and our biggest bank has stated that it is business as usual 1st of January. Of course then who knows. Really though it seems to me your problems (SMEs, health, local governmet, water, international) are similar to ours. I have lots of links and info on my pages at:

 Industry Canada Testimony
http://www.ampsc.com/~imager/Testimony/Category.html

I wonder how many Canadians are on this forum.....
 

-- Brian (imager@ampsc.com), April 22, 1999.

I'm a dual citizen and live half the year in Canada and half in the States. I would say the situation is the same in both countries, although the Canadian gov't has perhaps been a BIT more open about the problem. An electrician friend who has just built our electric panel for the generator works for Ontario Hydro.......he's preparing. A friend in the police dept tells us they have tripled their supply of ammo. My cousin who is the VP of a bank is (privately) worried sick.

Most friends and neighbours though, are DGI's because the press and PR is mostly positive spin.

Canada's MacLean's Magazine just did a cover story on Y2K which you can read at http://www.macleans.ca/pub-doc/1999/04/19/Cover/4998.html

-- NotMyNameToday (yadayada@ya.net), April 22, 1999.

PJC wrote:

"Joe Boivin, former CIO of a major Canadian bank and president of the Global Millienium Foundation, has wrttten on the russkelley.com experts predictions site that you can take the percentage of remediated systems reported by the gov. in the Great White North and divide by a factor of two to get reality. Probably the same for private biz. So much for the lead."

And what exactly are Joe Boivin's reasons for stating what he does? Once again, the more doomer-inclined pundits fall back onto the "gov't is lying" mantra. Why should I believe Boivin? April 1st has come and gone without any reported problems. If the Canadian federal government was as far behind as Boivin maintains should there not have been serious problems at Fiscal 2000 roll-over? When the next Auditor General's report comes out (equiv to US GAO, I think) it is expected to show very good progress. (But then again the AG could be part of the conspiracy.......)

-Keep your stick on the ice-

-- Johnny Canuck (nospam@eh.com), April 23, 1999.

Johnny,

Have you really thought through the significance of April 1st? Unless the Canadian government is already 99% compliant, then we should have heard about at least a few glitches in accounting software. None were reported in the media. Why?

Possible explanations...

1. Y2K never needed to be fixed. It was all a hoax from the beginning. Problems will be minor even if no remediation takes place.

2. It's easy to make an organization Y2K compliant. (But if that's true, then most everyone would have finished by December 31, 1998).

3. Agencies have prioritized their remediation and made sure that accounting software was dealt with early on.

4. Agencies changed the end date of their fiscal year 2000 from March 31, 2000 to December 31, 1999.

5. There are problems with accounting software going on at some agencies, but we don't hear about it.

My personal opinion about this is some combination of points three, four or five.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 23, 1999.

I also agree with NotMyNameToday that the Canadian government has been more open about potential Y2K problems than the U.S....

http://www.southam.com/ottawacitizen/newsnow/cpfs/national/990115/n011 5108.html

[snip]

Troops bracing for massive New Year's deployment

JENNIFER DITCHBURN

OTTAWA (CP) - Canadas entire military machine of 60,000 troops, reservists and civilians is being put on alert for the fallout from malfunctioning computers a year from now, defence officials said Friday.

Nobody knows how much disruption will be caused by the millennium bug. It could be concentrated in a few areas or small enough for civil authorities to handle.

But the Canadian Forces arent ruling out the possibility of a massive deployment.

A force of 14,500 servicemen and women has already been earmarked for mobilization on Jan. 1, 2000 and beyond as part of Operation Abacus. Another 4,000 reservists are expected to participate.

The rest of the Forces, from search and rescue personnel to civilian staff, will be available for duty should the situation get serious.

Only troops on overseas missions or working on projects within North America will be counted unavailable for the year 2000 operation.

"We are aware that at this time the most likely impact of year 2000 is still unknown," said Col. Charles Lemieux, the deputy chief of defence staffs chief planner for operation Abacas.

"We therefore consider it prudent to apply a maximum effort to training and preparations and to be prepared to respond to requests for assistance to whatever degree is most appropriate."

Details of the preliminary planning going into Operation Abacus were made public as part of governments push for greater transparency on year 2000 issues.

The scope of the operation is enormous. The Forces are grappling with potential power outages, food shortages and health and emergency service disruptions,

Regular training exercises, new overseas deployments and other activities will be on hold during the first three months of 2000 to make sure all resources are ready for action.

The pricetag for Abacus is estimated at $386 million, which could go up or down depending on the severity of the situation.

Abacuss headquarters, in Kingston, Ont., will co-ordinate activities of five command centres across Canada. Training exercises based on year 2000 scenarios will be carried out three times this year.

Military officials compare this operation with the deployment of troops last year to eastern Ontario and Quebec after the devastating ice storm.

Gen. Maurice Baril, chief of the defence staff, and deputy defence minister Jim Judd, wrote in a memo that the Canadian Forces will have a positive impact on the situation as long as they dont over-react.

If the general public initially perceives that the Canadian Forces is effectively engaged in the situation, then public confidence in the Canadian Forces and the government will be fostered at the outset of the crisis."

Emphasis is also being placed on what happens outside of Canadas borders, since a weak foreign link in an interconnected computer network could cause domestic problems.

Defence staff have been meeting regularly with officials overseas - particularly Russian and eastern European countries lagging far behind in bringing computer systems up to date.

Russia and the Ukraine concern security agencies like NATO because of their nuclear capabilities and the risk of major malfunctions.

[snip]

) The Canadian Press, 1999

---------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 23, 1999.

Bold off?

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 23, 1999.

I think there is a large variance in Y2K compliance and preparation from place to place and company to company. Personally, I feel much better about our gas and electric than many on the board. On the other hand, I haven't been able to find out much about water. At work, the attitude of the head of IT is that Y2K is greatly overblown, and from what I've heard, there are likely going to be lots of glitches. (They are replacing equipment that the manufacturers tell them won't work. That seems to be about the extent of their remediation!) Wasn't it Donna that used to say, hang on to your hats, folks, the ride's apt to be a bit wild?

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 23, 1999.

Kevin wrote:

"Have you really thought through the significance of April 1st? Unless the Canadian government is already 99% compliant, then we should have heard about at least a few glitches in accounting software. None were reported in the media. Why? "

I'm a little confused as to why you worded that question the way you did. I thought my post conveyed the impression that the Can gov't really was doing very well and the proof was in the lack of publicly reported glitches after the rollover to Fiscal 2000 on 1 April.

I think we are both in agreement that things are looking good with remediation efforts in the Can fed gov't. If I've got your thoughts on this wrong then please set me straight.

-Keep your stick on the ice-

-- Johnny Canuck (nospam@eh.com), April 23, 1999.

Johnny,

I think my point was clear. Unless the Canadian government is something like 99% or 100% compliant, there would be other reasons why we didn't hear about any Y2K problems of any kind following April 1st.

The same point applies to the state of New York, Britain and companies that started their fiscal year 2000 on April 1st. Is everyone in the vicinity of being 99% or 100% compliant already? Or could there be other reasons why there was no news of Y2K problems connected to April 1st?

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 23, 1999.

Kevin

I re-read your post with the 5 points in it and I think I now understand what you are saying.

You say that the lack of news about Y2K problems around 1 April is most likely due to a mixture of points 3, 4 and 5

(3. Agencies have prioritized their remediation and made sure that accounting software was dealt with early on.

4. Agencies changed the end date of their fiscal year 2000 from March 31, 2000 to December 31, 1999.

5. There are problems with accounting software going on at some agencies, but we don't hear about it.)

My own take on it is that point 3 is the most likely to have happened. I don't have a huge amount of respect for the internal managerial qualities of the gov't (I am a small business owner and have had a few run-ins with incompetent bureaucrats), BUT they do have the intelligence to figure out which systems need to be addressed first.

Ref point 4 - I haven't heard of this happening, but if it works and doesn't cause any problems once the year-end is reset to 31-3-2000 then why should we worry?

Ref point 5 - I would agree that there most likely have been internal problems. But they have been fixed internally before any customer was affected. Again, why should we worry?

In your most recent post you say: "Or could there be other reasons why there was no news of Y2K problems connected to April 1st?"

Are you implying that there is some sort of "conspiracy of silence" between the government and the media so that that bad news is not reported? I don't know how much you know about my country but sections of the media and the governing federal Liberal Party HATE each other (for example, over the APEC protest). It is almost beyond comprehension that our federal gov't could exert that much control over the entire media in a democratic country. Editors (both print and broadcast) have been complaining that Y2K is so hard to report because hard "facts" are hard to come by. One likened it to nailing Jello to the wall. If there was even the sniff of a major computer problem around April 1st the journalists would have been on it like bears on a honeytree.

I think the most likely reason for no public reporting of April 1st Y2K problems is that there were *no major problems*. As many of the IT guys who post here have said, systems have always broken down, IT departments are always having to fix bugs, workarounds are always having to be devised etc. (yeah, I know this means I accept the more polly-ish interpretation - but there you go.)

We should revisit the April 1st situation again in July. By that time there will have been 3 month-ends performed as well as a quarterly reconciliation. If no problems surface during those then I suggest that the odds of "catastrophic" system crashes in the Can fed gov't on 1 Jan 2000 are reduced even further than they are now.

-Keep your stick on the ice-

-- Johnny Canuck (nospam@eh.com), April 23, 1999.

Johnny,

If you think point three applies, then you agree that April 1st is not a good indication of how much overall Y2K work has been done so far.

About your answer to point 5: there is still reason for concern, because some of this accounting software may not be fixed yet, and because it says little about what will happen to non-accounting software, BIOS chips and embedded systems in January 2000.

You haven't heard about the technique described in point four? The reason I brought it up is, again, the events of April 1st might be taken as a sign that Y2K has already been fixed. It may have just been bandaged:

[snip]

13 States, District Face Y2K Problems

Unemployment Checks May be Slowed

By Stephen Barr

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 23, 1998; Page A03

Thirteen states and the District will have to put electronic bandages on their computers next month so they can pay new unemployment insurance claims into the year 2000, Clinton administration officials said yesterday.

The federal-state unemployment program provides one of the first large-scale examples of the problems caused by the "Y2K bug." Computer experts have warned that payments for billions of dollars in Medicaid, food stamps, child welfare and other federal-state benefits could be at risk because surveys have shown that states are moving slowly on the Y2K problem.

Many of the computer systems in the unemployment insurance program, which processes claims, makes payments to the jobless and collects taxes from employers, are more than 30 years old. The systems processed more than $20 billion in state unemployment benefits in fiscal 1998 and provide crucial data on economic trends.

Persons filing claims for jobless benefits are assigned a "benefit year," which means that -- starting Jan. 4, 1999 -- unemployment insurance systems will have to be able to process dates and calculations that extend into 2000. Y2K problems may occur when computers next month try to process a first-time claim with a benefit year that covers both 1999 and 2000, officials said.

Some states that have not solved their Y2K problems will use a simple temporary fix, such as ending all benefit years on Dec. 31, 1999, while other states will use different techniques that essentially trick the computers so they will perform accurate date calculations, officials said.

If the computers are still not ready to operate on Jan. 1, 2000, states then will rely on emergency backup plans, including the writing of benefit checks by hand, officials said.

John A. Koskinen, the president's adviser on Y2K issues, and Deputy Labor Secretary Kathryn Higgins yesterday stressed that the nation's unemployment insurance system would not suffer serious disruptions.

"A year out, we know where our problems are. . . . It's an enormous help to have that information," Higgins said.

Koskinen pointed to the contingency planning for jobless benefits as a clear sign that the government will be able to maintain important services and programs, even if computer systems encounter Y2K problems.

[snip]

Labor Department officials listed Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont as lagging on Y2K repairs. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also are running behind schedule, the officials said.

Delaware, according to the Labor Department, will not have all computer systems converted until the last possible moment: Jan. 1, 2000. But state officials said the most critical systems have been fixed and suggested that even experts can disagree on how to assess Y2K readiness.

The District should have its unemployment system fixed by March 31, the Labor Department said.

Overall, the repair bill could run to $490 million for the unemployment insurance systems, according to preliminary estimates.

[snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 23, 1999.