# Welcome to the Canadoper Café, 2025! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 31, 2024, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410 "2024-12-31T21:26:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 35
**Author:** ![MacDoc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/macdoc/32/18696_2.png) [@MacDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacDoc)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/682 "2025-06-24T16:05:33Z")
Yep - pure mismanagement of the roll out. Now the buyer kept changing the wants but the roll out was just plain wrong. Friends in Queensland might have lost their house - they had no money for weeks and weeks as both worked in Queensland Health. Accenture changed it’s company name over it. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/683 "2025-06-24T18:37:37Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I’ve been sorta following this story for years. It seems unbelievable. > > Obviously, I don’t know the tech details and the ins and outs of it all, but one point jumped out at me from an early article on it: the federal government decided not to do a limited test of the new system. One proposal was that it would be rolled out only in a couple of the smaller provinces, in beta mode, to get real experience of how it worked in actual practice. > > For some reason, the decision was made to turn it all on at once, for every federal employee across the country. > > That decision appears to have magnified the difficulty and cost of trying to fix it. It was mostly driven by the Harper government wanting to get it in place soon enough to be able to claim the hypothetical savings for their upcoming election campaign. Some of the implementation failures included laying off most of the dedicated central payroll clerks, failure to provide or fund training for the departmental HR staff who were supposed to take over the input of pay transactions to the new system, failure to provide training for employees to be able to get any information out of the system, and then to blame everything on the new Liberal government when they lost the election. I still kick myself for not deciding to retire 6 months before the switchover instead of six months after. It took over two years for my pay and retirement benefits to be sorted out, and there were still a few problems that never got completely fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/684 "2025-06-24T19:53:18Z")
In other news, by-elections yesterday in Alberta: no change in status. NDP held two Edmonton seats, giving Nenshi his seat in the Assembly, and UCP held Olds. Nenshi won his seat by about the same margin Notley won it last time, so that will likely end back room mutterings by some NDPers. UCP won by a comfortable 60% in Olds. Interesting point is that in Olds, where the Republican Party was running on separatism, the NDP came in second, ahead of the separatists. Commentators like Braid are saying that if the separatists get beat by the NDP in Olds, they’re in trouble. On the other hand National Post article says that 35% of UCP voters think Smith is a closet separatist. Context: Olds is the only Alberta riding that has elected a separatist, when the Western Canada Concept won it in a by-election 40 years ago. Some links: > **[Braid: Separatism crashes on byelection night; Nenshi tops Notley vote in big...](https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-separatism-crashes-on-byelection-night-nenshi-tops-notley-vote-in-big-edmonton-win)** > > The separatist movement went nowhere in Alberta on its most fertile territory; NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi finally secured a legislature seat > **['It's not great': Alberta independence movement takes hit in Olds byelection](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/its-not-great-alberta-independence-movement-takes-hit-in-olds-byelection)** > > Take Back Alberta founder David Parker said Monday morning that, by the end of the day, Albertans would know the strength of the province's [https://www.thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/06/24/Nenshi-NDP-Posts-Strong-Byelections/](https://www.thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/06/24/Nenshi-NDP-Posts-Strong-Byelections/) ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/685 "2025-06-24T22:03:26Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > On the other hand National Post article says that 35% of UCP voters think Smith is a closet separatist. As a liberal Albertan, I too think she is a closet separatist, and _barely_ closeted at that. Maybe I am not being fair, because my opinion of her is already rock bottom. The Phoenix payroll thing is mind blowing. How does this happen? Its the sort of thing the old right wing talk radio guys would be cashing in on for years. Big storm over the weekend in Calgary. Lots of flooded basements and wet homes. Will be another major insurance event. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/686 "2025-06-24T22:13:01Z")
How much would it cost to implement a new payroll system from scratch starting now? If it’s less than repairing Phoenix…it probably could get worse, but maybe not? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/687 "2025-06-24T22:13:14Z")
> [@FluffyBob](#): > > Its the sort of thing the old right wing talk radio guys would be cashing in on for years. Other than the point that it started under Harper. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/688 "2025-06-24T22:16:10Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > How much would it cost to implement a new payroll system from scratch starting now? If it’s less than repairing Phoenix…it probably could get worse, but maybe not? I’m not a tech person, but I doubt that it’s possible to start from scratch, because Phoenix has decades of employment info about federal public servants: jobs, salaries, vacation and benefits entitlements, pension contributions, etc. I doubt that you could start from scratch without some linkage to those data bases, could you? So doesn’t Phoenix have to be kept operative, even if the goal is a completely new system? ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/689 "2025-06-24T22:25:31Z")
Probably, but Phoenix replaced something else with that history (though poorly). I don’t actually know much about it, I’m just idly wondering if “repairing” a sinking ship will actually be more costly than just getting a new one. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/690 "2025-06-24T22:27:58Z")
When did conservative accountability ever enter into their schtick? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/691 "2025-06-24T22:46:21Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Probably, but Phoenix replaced something else with that history (though poorly) Yes, but Phoenix has been operating (to use the term loosely) for about a decade now, so whatever databases from the previous system still exist are badly out of date and wouldn’t include new hires since Phoenix came online. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/692 "2025-06-24T22:47:24Z")
There’s a pretty detailed wikipedia article on Phoenix. It’s disturbing in several ways, particularly the former public servant who killed herself because of the economic ruin she faced from losing her income under Phoenix. Another public servant had the bank foreclose on their house, because they kept getting cheques for $0.00. > **[Phoenix pay system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system)** > > The Phoenix pay system is a payroll processing system for Canadian federal government employees, provided by IBM in June 2011 using PeopleSoft software, and run by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The Public Service Pay Centre is located in Miramichi, New Brunswick. It was first introduced in 2009 as part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative, intended to replace Canada's 40-year old system with a new, cost-saving "automated, off-the-shelf comm... ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/693 "2025-06-25T02:10:17Z")
I think I linked to that article already. I found it a disturbing read. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/694 "2025-06-25T13:46:42Z")
Curious what could come of this. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-next-premier-danielle-smith-adam-legge-1.7569417](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-next-premier-danielle-smith-adam-legge-1.7569417) Speculations? ETA: Why no preview, Discourse? Smith basically wants to conduct town halls this summer for feedback on “…assert[ing] autonomy and shield its economy from what she calls federal overreach.” ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/695 "2025-06-25T14:09:46Z")
I’m sorry to say that Serge Fiori died yesterday at the age of 73. For those of you who have never heard the band “Harmonium”, well, you’re in for a treat. In three albums recorded in three years, they summed up the entire history of prog rock, from a folk-based trio on the first album “Harmonium”, to a sextet on the second album “Si on avait besoin d’une cinquieme saison”, to a double album with orchestra, “L’Heptade”. Their influence in Québec cannot be over-stated - they came on the scene at about the same time as Beau Dommage, and showed generations of Québécois musicians that it was possible to express cultural, spiritual, and political themes unique to them. Here’s the first cut on the first album, appropriately titled “Harmonium” - [https://youtu.be/R3GQkltF3Bc?si=rb0dKiSnt2uiJpSP](https://youtu.be/R3GQkltF3Bc?si=rb0dKiSnt2uiJpSP) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/696 "2025-06-25T16:01:49Z")
Welcome back! You’ve been missed! Sorry to hear about Fiori. I loved the debut album and enjoyed 5 saisons, but couldn’t get into l’heptade for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/697 "2025-06-25T21:02:21Z")
Article on Bill C-4. > **[Analysis: 4 reasons to be concerned about Bill C-4’s threats to Canadian...](https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/reasons-to-be-concerned-about-bill-c-4/)** > > If privacy is important anywhere, it is in the context of politics. If it is important at any time, that time is now. > [@](#): > > At the moment, these laws don’t apply to political parties. Some provinces — especially British Columbia — have implemented [laws that do](https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/03063_01). In May 2024, the [B.C. Supreme Court upheld](https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/24/08/2024BCSC0814.htm) the provincial Information Commissioner’s ruling that B.C.’s privacy legislation applies to federal political parties. That decision is currently under appeal. [Bill C-4](https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-4) would undermine those B.C. rights. It would make inapplicable to federal parties the standard privacy rights that apply in other business and government contexts— such as the right to consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information — and to access and correct personal information held by organizations. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/698 "2025-06-27T19:04:49Z")
Wow! Fuck you, Mr. Trump, and fuck all Republicans! Sorry, I have a piece to write, and I need a lot more time to cool off before I can say anything more clever and articulate than “Fuck all bullies!”. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-terminating-trade-discussions-canada-1.7572964](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-terminating-trade-discussions-canada-1.7572964) ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/699 "2025-06-29T15:48:29Z")
Of course Trump has a lot of cards. He probably cheats at bingo as well as golf. Carney has extended some irritating policies, but collecting a modicum of tax on wealthy companies should not be one of them. Still, business leaders have a point when they say it is an obvious irritant. Carney has done well so far but expectations are high. Even “the adults in the room” had trouble dealing with Trumpian outbursts of colic. Carney should continue to flatter and make soothing noises, try the gripewater, stay calm and avoid getting upset, lay Trump gently on his belly, hold him upright after feeding and try thickening his milk with Pablum. Which was a Canadian invention. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2025, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/700 "2025-06-29T16:33:06Z")
It was also in the news that BC Ferries had paid a kajillion dollars for four Chinese boats. This strikes me as sensible, despite lots of chatter. There are American laws saying American boats need to be used for certain local routes, and analysis revealed they cost something like five times as much. No one would be kvetching if the boats were Swedish. If Canadian companies can come close to the proffered price they should be preferred. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410/701 "2025-06-29T22:52:38Z")
Can someone explain this 3% tax that Canada has/will impose on certain US companies that Trump is complaining about? They say it’s retroactive to 2022, and that something like $3 billion is expected in the next few days. Have these companies been paying since 2022, or have they been expected to save the required money and pay up now? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410.md?page=34) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/welcome-to-the-canadoper-cafe-2025/1012410.md?page=36)