Notes

Federal Employees are Eligible for Paid Vacation.

Article content OTTAWA thousands of federal bureaucrats were instructed to work remotely by the COVID-19 virus. However, their internet servers cannot handle more than "essential" government service.



Article content Federal departments have asked staff members who were sent home Monday to not access internal servers if they're not working on essential or core services. That's because most departments have a number of restrictions on the number of people who can access work servers from outside the office.



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Federal employees can be paid vacation for thousands of hours because they are unable to work remotely.



"Imagine that you had to connect to the Internet via dial-up. That's exactly how it is right now. Every minute is important, so you connect, you download the information you require and then you switch off," union leader Debi Daviau spoke about the government's VPNs (Virtual Privacy Networks).



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Article content Many bureaucrats, who aren’t assigned to crucial service and those whose work involves sensitive information such as classified or secret documents, or certain dossiers or documents that are classified as confidential, are most affected. They are generally on paid leave.



Article content



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Late last week in the week that followed, the Department of National Defence issued an advisory saying that only "essential core" actions will be carried out for the long-term. Thus, all other staff should stay at home and stay away from the department's remote system.



A spokesperson stated that employees are encouraged and urged to work remotely via "other ways" if possible.



Only DND personnel should have access to (Defence Virtual Private Networking Infrastructure). DND issued an order late last week that stated this is intended to ease the burden on IT systems and Information Management.



Content of the article at Crown-Indigenous Relation and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) employees who don't provide "essential services" are asked to only access the department's network during an hour-long period, between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. (EDT) to ensure they are able to "retrieve documents and update e-mail."



In the meantime, employees are "exceptionally" asked to use their personal email for non-classified information as often as is possible.



It may be the push to the back of the government that needs to invest more in teleworking infrastructure and technology



In the same way, employees at Canada Revenue Agency who perform "non-critical services" have been asked to take paid leave between March 15 and April 5, according to spokesman Dany Morin.



Shared Services Canada, the IT department of the government, says that it can assist employees who work remotely to provide "essential services" across the entire government.



Article content However, since the Treasury Board Secretariat issued an order to all federal departments that they should allow remote working when it is possible, SSC has been repeatedly insisting on bureaucrats to not use VPN.



"When using VPN, we ask that only the necessary applications be used, and to limit Internet usage to what is essential - do not use streaming services and use social media only when it is necessary," Shared Services Canada president Paul Glover tweeted on Tuesday.



Following the tweet, Shared Services confirmed to the National Post that it is actually blocking access to certain websites on the government VPN.
Datchley's blog


"Until the capacity of networks is increased, departments are taking action to limit the use of networks that are not essential and reducing activities that are not essential and blocking non-essential social media sites for all Government of Canada (I.e. video streaming, personal social media accounts). Shared Services is monitoring the situation in real time and will make changes as required on an ongoing basis," the department said in an email.



Content of the article Shared services also informed the National Post that they are "working with vendors" in order to increase their capacity so they can handle more government users in the near future.



The department didn't specify if it was buying or renting additional network capacity. It said instead that plans were being created to provide additional capacity as needed.



Daviau, the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada Daviau, the president of the Professional Institute of Public Service of Canada that it was frustrating for professionals who want their work to be completed.



"If I can see an upside to this is that it could be the push in the back of the government to invest more in teleworking infrastructure and technologies. Public employees will have more freedom in the way and location they work. The necessity is the root of invention," Daviau said.



Twitter: ChrisGNardi



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