StatsCan chief resigns

[jacee]

Statistics Canada head resigns, accuses Trudeau Liberals of 'compromising independence'

Wayne Smith, head of Statistics Canada, announced his resignation Friday morning.

"I cannot lend my support to government initiatives that will purport to protect the independence of Statistics Canada when, in fact, that independence has never been more compromised.

I do not wish to preside over the decline of what is still, but cannot remain in these circumstances, a world leading statistical office."

Typical Liberal crap: repackage Conservative crap and call it lavender.

Still stinks.

Any government agency is always under pressure to produce slant that flatters sitting governments.

No sitting government is going to give up any message control gained by predecessors.

Kudos to StatsCan chief Wayne Smith for integrity in drawing this to our attention.

.

[TimG]

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

[dialamah]

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Gotta agree. Went looking for more info about this story, and found a story about the Stats Can boss resigning due to Conservatives scrapping long form census. The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess.

[poochy]

Well, he sounded like a control freak who thought he was running his own fiefdom, good riddance.

[Moonlight Graham]

Smells like opportunism at its best!

I believe Wayne when he says he has some issues with the Liberals, but the article says he joined StatsCan in 1981 (after having other jobs), so that's 35 years, right around retirement age and with enough years to get himself a big fat pension, and enough years served specifically in the wonderfully-paid role of Chief Statistician to get the sweetest pension possible.

The timing of his resignation certainly isn't out of immediate "I can't take it anymore!!" disgust and moral clarity, considering census collection offices across Canada conveniently wrapped up and closed down at the end of August, so he was obviously waiting to leave when the 2016 census was complete. The timing is also convenient considering he just led "the best census ever!!", so if he retires now he knows he'll be going out on a very high note and leaving a wonderful reputation for himself.

Sorry Wayne, I think you were just going to retire anyways, weren't you? And you used your retirement as a political opportunity to show your "disgust", which is probably genuine, but please don't try and convince us you're this great selfless moral crusader. I didn't see you resigning when the Harper gov took away the long-form or started the independence-clawing that the Liberals are continuing.

I'm sorry but most public servants are selfish spineless people who virtually never blow the whistle on the tons and TONS of corruption, waste, and ethical BS that goes on in the civil service everyday for fear of losing their jobs. That's some great patriots for you! They care about money & benefits over the good of their country. Thanks for serving!

Edited September 17, 2016 by Moonlight Graham

[TimG]

Sorry Wayne, I think you were just going to retire anyways, weren't you? And you used your retirement as a political opportunity to show your "disgust", which is probably genuine, but please don't try and convince us you're this great selfless moral crusader.

Yet when a civil servant criticized Harper no one would even bother to look for ulterior motives. They just piled on the "Harper evil" band wagon. Your rationalizations are quite hypocritical.

[Smallc]

Yet when a civil servant criticized Harper no one would even bother to look for ulterior motives. They just piled on the "Harper evil" band wagon. Your rationalizations are quite hypocritical.

I'm pretty sure a lot of you (and me) would have been exploring that. I'm sure you won't be looking for ulterior motives in this case.

[Moonlight Graham]

Yet when a civil servant criticized Harper no one would even bother to look for ulterior motives. They just piled on the "Harper evil" band wagon. Your rationalizations are quite hypocritical.

I'm not being partisan here. If you think I'm some big Liberal or Trudeau fan you haven't been reading my posts all these years.

I even admitted his accusations against the Liberals are probably honest. My point isn't to score partisan points, it's to point out this guy specifically is an opportunist with other motives, and many public servants in general are shite (regardless of government).

Why are so many of your posts trying to degrade posters who you think disagree with your ideology (even though we probably agree more than you think) by pointing out they're hypocrites etc.? These types of accusations I always laugh because you commit exactly the same thing WHILE you're making them. Speaking of hypocrites, where were you to point out how big hypocrites right-wing posters were on MLW when they didn't criticize Harper when he was in power but tore down Trudeau/Mulcair/Obama?

[TimG]

Speaking of hypocrites, where were you to point out how big hypocrites right-wing posters were on MLW when they didn't criticize Harper when he was in power but tore down Trudeau/Mulcair/Obama?

You are right. The hypocrisy there grates on me too (I did post in the Justin at a Mosque thread that I thought the segregation in the Mosque was a non-issue). I guess I am just more sensitive to rationalizations where is it painfully obvious that they would have not been offered if Harper was PM. Edited September 17, 2016 by TimG

[cybercoma]

I'm going to tell you right now that this has everything to do with the consolidation of IT services under Harper's government and Trudeau is going to do nothing about it. The problem is data security integrity. Each government department had its own in-house IT. Consolidating them maybe makes sense with other departments but StatsCan needs its own in-house IT in order to maintain the confidentiality of data. StatsCan is currently fighting to get things as simple as statistical software loaded on the computers at their offices across the country. He's right to criticize both Trudeau and Harper. The people at StatsCan can't do their jobs effectively anymore but more importantly data security has been compromised.

[Big Guy]

What I understand of the reason for the resignation was not political interference but lack of funding for upgrading analysis systems and streamlining statistical gathering. He felt he could not preform his responsibility to give statistical analysis of data because he was not given adequate (his term) resources with which to process data into analysis and projection.

Personally, I am not concerned. Bureaucrats cocooned in their particular dark corners of government come to believe that their department is the most important and that it should be financed as such. This myopia is neither vengeful or negative, it is based on the isolated lack of understanding of how a government operates.

[Argus]

Kudos to StatsCan chief Wayne Smith for integrity in drawing this to our attention.

An entitled idiot. And he didn't resign 'out of principle' till he had his 35 years in.

The federal government has hundreds of different computer systems. Updating them all individually while protecting them from ongoing hacking is an insurmountable task. Yes, it's true that the centralization of IT facilities and support has had issues. Of course it has! It's an extraordinarily complex job just to integrate all those separate email systems, never mind all the servers and systems. CRA alone had dozens of different systems when I was there. And they were constantly being attacked.

Canada’s top bureaucrat, Michael Wernick, has been unequivocal. Shared Services may need some fixing but it is central to the government’s plan to replace aging technology, improve efficiency and protect the government from cyber attacks.

“We have no choice but to move forward with Shared Services Canada. The idea that over 300 federal organizations were going to fix and modernize and recapitalize their IT, one at a time, by going to Treasury Board and Finance and building independent systems, is a fantasy scenario. We had to do it together,” he said in an interview with CBC earlier this year.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/shared-services-canada-was-a-battle-chief-statistician-couldnt-win

[?Impact]

Consolidated IT services are always problematic. It is a process controlled by short sighted bean counters. Management (the government) does play a role in creating incentives for false savings. The issue come from the mandate to use their services, rather than the central department bidding for the business. While there are certain services that make sense to centralize (e.g. email, payroll, etc.), the big point of contention has long been the desktop.

No sitting government is going to give up any message control gained by predecessors.

Yes, that is a big part of the problem. To be fair, changing course is also a perilous route. While a new government (management team) may bank its success on some change, it is not going to initiate change in some area without careful consideration unless it has already committed to it.

[Moonlight Graham]

Smells like opportunism at its best!

I believe Wayne when he says he has some issues with the Liberals, but the article says he joined StatsCan in 1981 (after having other jobs), so that's 35 years, right around retirement age and with enough years to get himself a big fat pension, and enough years served specifically in the wonderfully-paid role of Chief Statistician to get the sweetest pension possible.

Well I've confirmed with a friend who works in the federal government that if you retire at 30 years served you get a pension that is 60% paycheck, but if you wait and retire at 35 years you get 70% of your paycheck. And that percentage is based from your 5 highest payed years.

Sooo...is it a coincidence that Wayne "resigned" after reaching his 35 years of service this year, and that he's been in his very well-paid position as Chief Statistician for exactly 5 years?

Edited September 19, 2016 by Moonlight Graham

[msj]

Two things come to mind here:

1) Don't tell me how the universe is altered/ When you find out how he gets paid, all right.

And

2) Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. - Eleanor Roosevelt.

IOW, CC and ?Impact win the thread.

[TimG]

The people at StatsCan can't do their jobs effectively anymore but more importantly data security has been compromised.

This is a problem at every large company. Part of the issue is cybersecurity. Processes put in place to prevent people who think they know what they doing from compromising the system often interferes with the ability to do work. Once you combine the needs of cybersecurity with the inefficient public service you are going to get disaster. But government inefficiency does not mean centralizing IT services was a bad idea. Edited September 19, 2016 by TimG

[cybercoma]

This is a problem at every large company. Part of the issue is cybersecurity. Processes put in place to prevent people who think they know what they doing from compromising the system often interferes with the ability to do work. Once you combine the needs of cybersecurity with the inefficient public service you are going to get disaster. But government inefficiency does not mean centralizing IT services was a bad idea.

This isn't the problem at every large company. First of all, large companies are not bound by the Statistics Act when it comes to their data security. More importantly, large corporations don't carry the same kind of data as StatsCan. Everything from the Labour Force Survey to Household Spending to the Census to Crime Data to Health Data is contained there. Data security leaks at companies are worrisome, at StatsCan, disastrous. But the most important distinction is that large corporations generally have their own in house IT​. If they contract it out, that's their choice. Read that again, it's their​ choice. This choice was made for Statistics Canada without consultation on how it would harm their capabilities and security. Shared Services takes control of security away from the Chief Statistician and puts it in the hands of bureaucrats who are not bound by the Statistics Act. More importantly, shared services has to decide between departments when security upgrades are needed. They get a budget from Finance and decide how to spend it across all the departments. StatsCan can no longer go to the department of Finance and plead their case. They no longer control their data infrastructure and that's a massive problem.

​I say this only half facetiously, but where are all of those people who were so concerned about the long-form census now? This is an actual serious problem for data confidentiality and they're nowhere to be found. Yet the presence of the long-form alone is enough to throw them into a tizzy. Why it's almost like they have no intimate knowledge of the systems and processes at StatsCan and just babble on with opinionated and partisan vigor.

Edited September 19, 2016 by cybercoma

[TimG]

More importantly, large corporations don't carry the same kind of data as StatsCan. Everything from the Labour Force Survey to Household Spending to the Census to Crime Data to Health Data is contained there.

Methinks you are making up facts to suit your narratives. CRA and many other agencies hold data which is *more* sensitive than statistical data and their bosses are not "resigning in protest". I certainly do not see Stats Canada as having data security problems with are more difficult than other agencies. When I re-read the news stories I see the litany of complaints about centralized IT departments being too slow to approve new software or system purchases which mirrosr my experience with big company IT departments. While the bureaucratic delays are likely completely unreasonable the process of requiring that each piece of software be approved before it can be installed is good practice and designed to prevent trojans and other malware from getting installed on the network.

Moreover, the Shared Services Canada is still a government organization. It just centralizes all of the government IT services which is also standard practice in all large corporations.

Edited September 19, 2016 by TimG

[cybercoma]

Methinks you are making up facts to suit your narratives.

You can think whatever you want. I can assure you that I know very well the issues faced by Statistics Canada.

[TimG]

You can think whatever you want. I can assure you that I know very well the issues faced by Statistics Canada.

Then you should be able to provide a more technical explanation for why the centralized IT services is able to secure data held by the CRA and the finance dept but not data held by StatsCan. Edited September 19, 2016 by TimG

[cybercoma]

Then you should be able to provide a more technical explanation for why the centralized IT services is able to secure data held by the CRA and the finance dept but not data held by StatsCan.

The problem goes beyond data security. It's about StatsCan's independence. Shared Services eliminates StatsCan's ability to collect, process, store, analyze, and disseminate data. Shared Services is slow, expensive, and most importantly ineffective.

​The bigger problem is the loss of funding to Statistics Canada. It costs money to collect, store, process, analyze, and disseminate data. A not insignificant portion of Statistics Canada's funding came from the various departments paying them to handle data. Now that goes through Shared Services, it's not only less secure, but it's far less efficient and less capable. It has to go through several hands. Shared Services gets the request and when they get around to processing it, they then contact StatsCan to do the actual work. StatsCan then has to send things back to Shared Services, who gets it back to the client's department. There is literally a middle man now who wasn't there before.

That middle man threatens the independence of StatsCan, who is not supposed to be influence or hindered by the partisan aspects of the government. The added bureaucracy has been dragging its feet on important projects that the Chief Statistician is not going to make public because the vast majority of things that are done at StatsCan are not allowed to be made public. That's to ensure they maintain the confidence of the public that their information will not be leaked all willy nilly all over the place by the department.

​Statistics Canada needs to remain independent and free from partisan politics in order to do its job effectively. Requiring them to go through Shared Services undermines that independence and that's why the head of StatsCan is resigning. When the Chief Statistician can't even ensure that the handling of the data will meet the Statistics Act​, you can't claim they're an independent body anymore.

[?Impact]

CRA and many other agencies hold data which is *more* sensitive than statistical data

StatsCan publishes the statistical data, that is not the problem. It is the raw data they hold from which the statistical data is derived.

[TimG]

StatsCan publishes the statistical data, that is not the problem. It is the raw data they hold from which the statistical data is derived.

I think most people would consider the privacy of their tax returns to be more important than the privacy of their long form census answers.

And the information from the finance dept can have real economic value to stock speculators if it is leaked.

IOW - the raw data is not the most sensitive data which the government needs to manage.

[TimG]

The problem goes beyond data security. It's about StatsCan's independence. Shared Services eliminates StatsCan's ability to collect, process, store, analyze, and disseminate data. Shared Services is slow, expensive, and most importantly ineffective.

As I suspected. It has nothing to do with data security.

​The bigger problem is the loss of funding to Statistics Canada.

All government depts have to deal with budget cuts. That is a fact of life. Hardly something any government can do anything about in the long term. Blaming it on shared services is a but much.

Shared Services gets the request and when they get around to processing it, they then contact StatsCan to do the actual work. StatsCan then has to send things back to Shared Services, who gets it back to the client's department. There is literally a middle man now who wasn't there before.

Now we are getting to a legitimate complaint. Requiring that requests for data from other departments go throw shared services is quite unreasonable. Any IT dept should be able to set up a portal that StatsCanada can manage for this purpose. It is certainly not an argument for letting StatsCanada manage its own IT infrastructure.

​Statistics Canada needs to remain independent and free from partisan politics in order to do its job effectively.

There is absolutely nothing partisan about shared IT services.

[?Impact]

I think most people would consider the privacy of their tax returns to be more important than the privacy of their long form census answers.

StatsCan gets data from far more sources than the long form census.