Canadians ready for Y2K bug

The Canadian government says that most large Canadian businesses expect to have their IT systems Y2K ready before the end of this year.

A survey of 1600 companies with more than 250 staff reported that 99.5 percent will be ready for the year 2000 date change. The survey showed that 18 percent expect to be ready by the end of April, 52 percent will be ready before July, and 92 percent before September.

The survey also showed that about 21 percent of small businesses had still not taken any action regarding Y2K.

The survey results, however, do not guarantee that all the companies surveyed will be Y2K compliant. Modifying IT systems for the date change is just part of the work. Extensive testing lasting several months is required, and testing with the systems of trading partners is also necessary. Testing will bring up additional Y2K problems which could extend the time to make all necessary fixes.

-- Norm (nwo@hotmail.com), April 29, 1999

Answers

At 18% finished it would seem that Canada will be "fixed" when it gets fixed. Right now if the rollover happened todayt then Canada would not be fixed.

-- Brian (imager@ampsc.com), April 29, 1999.

...yes, but the rollover is not happening today - is it?

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 29, 1999.

Y2K Pro,

Here is a good hypothetical for ya. I EXPECT to be debt-free by Christmas. I was asked how progress was going and I SAID I am 18% paid up. I SAY that by summer I EXPECT to be 60% paid up by golly! I SHOULD be 90% paid up by Thanksgiving.

Get the picture dude? The best laid plans of mice and men and all that???

We all have hopes, dreams, plans, expectations, goals, etc. They are worthless if THEY AREN'T REALIZED OR REALIZED TOO LATE. The blurb cited above by the illustrious Mr. Norm means squat. I want to see just one entity that is REAL-WORLD THIRD-PARTY-VERIFIED NO-B.S. NO- SPIN and whose suppliers, vendors, customers, etc. ARE ALSO COMPLIANT TO THE SAME DEGREE RIGHT NOW. Not at the last stinking minute!

You Pollys kill me!

-- Jeremiah Jetson (laterthan@uthink.y2k), April 29, 1999.

Y2K Pro,

Wait a minute, wait a minute, the rollover *is* happening right now. I see that some electric companies are running their systems in the Y2000, and some Wall Street software, and.....well you know the litany better than me. It's being rolled over all over the place. Just not in Canada yet, I guess. Good thing too! Unless of course all those statements about organisations running their programs right now in the Y2000 are BS or something. Do you have some more accurate information about that matter?

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), April 30, 1999.

If you are referring to the Stats Canada report, I read that Jennifer McNeil, President of Cipher Systems in Calgary and recognized by testimony before a House of Commons subcommitte studying y2k, stating and this is a direct quote, "the report is bullshit". I would rather believe she has a better pulse on y2k remediation in Canada than Statistics Canada

-- rick (rreilly@home.ca), April 30, 1999.

I think the "bullshit" women was talking about Y2K remediation in the oil patch, not in Canada as a whole. I would be very surprised if she was able to comment on the situation as a whole up here.

-- Johnny Canuck (nospam@eh.com), April 30, 1999.

Some of Ms McNeill's testimony to Industry Canada

"Ms. Jennifer McNeill: What has to be done is the escalation of this to a very high level of government and industry within Canada so there is the level of knowledge within organizations to understand what their risk is.

It's not going to be finished. At this point it's not possible to get the work done on the IT systems that are mission critical alone, much less the embedded systems. The organizations have to do risk management and contingency planning, and if they have a problem that's going to cause a disruption of services, such as a hospital not being able to open the doors or the fire alarms not going off, then they have to do contingency planning and risk management and determine how to get around those problemsand they have to do it now.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: If I understand that answer correctly, it means we have to say, today, that there will be failure.

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: That's correct, and the problem we see is that no one is ready to go out on a limb and say that. They won't take that chance, although we have evidence of other problems that have already occurred and are documented all over the world. No one within industry or within government will go out on a limb and say we have a significant problem and we need to deal with it.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: The point is that right now, as we sit here, we have put on record your statement that there will be failure.

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: That's correct.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: In my opinion, if that is correct, Madam Chair, it has to be made public. This is a public forum here this afternoon.

Is the issue then to determine where the failures will take place, and is it a matter of priorizing the risk level of failure?

Can you, with the background you have, prepare us, or give us some indication of where it is that the critical, life-threatening failures are likely to take place?

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There are life-threatening situations and there are also the big financial situations, such as the delivery of the transmission of funds from one account to another, and things of this type. That's only one aspect of the whole contractual obligation that exists between businesses.

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: I can tell you that the first place we have to start is with our electrical utilities, to determine if they're going to actually be able to provide power and what portion of power they're going to be able to provide.

Within doing that, it helps us to determine the other businesses that are going to be affected. If a telco can't get power, it can't provide phone service. If a person can't dial 911 and they have a sick child or someone is ill, then we're going to have loss of life.

Those are risks that are very clearly determined. We can see those. A hospital is a high priority. We have to determine within those the areas that are problems. Most of the hospitals that have done that work have already identified where their problems are. That information needs to be shared across that same industry.

The Chair: Last question, Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Thank you.

The question then is, having identified that, can we test to make sure that those critical areas have become capable of handling the 2000 crisis? Can we test them?

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: We can test some of them. Some of them cannot be tested. Those that cannot be tested are the ones that either have to be replaced, if it's determined that it's a serious risk, or turned off.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: They can't be turned off.

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: If you have an oil and gas plant or a chemical plant that will emit chemicals because it doesn't know what day it is, then that chemical plant needs to be shut down if it's not possible to test the system.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Okay, but there are others where life is involved. If you shut it down, that's death.

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: That's right.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: So you can't shut that down. How can you test now that it's going to work?

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: In many cases, it's not possible to test.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: To do that, it has to be replaced now.

Ms. Jennifer McNeill: That's right."

-- she's talking (hospitals@nd.chemicals.too), May 01, 1999.