BUREAUCRATS BEING PAID TO STAY HOME
Servers can only handle ‘essential’ services
OTTAWA • Thousands of federal bureaucrats who were told to work from home as a result of the COVID-19 virus are not actually working because their internet servers can’t handle more than “essential” government services.
Since Monday, most federal departments are asking staff who were sent home to stay off internal servers if they aren’t working on core or critical services. That’s because most ministries have significant limitations on how many people can simultaneously access work servers from outside the office.
“Imagine when you used to have to connect to the Internet with a dial-up connection. That’s what the situation is now. Every minute counts, so you connect, you download what you need, and then you get off,” union leader Debi Daviau said about government VPNS (Virtual Privacy Networks).
Bureaucrats who aren’t assigned to critical services and whose work involves sensitive information, such as classified, secret or even some protected-level documents or dossiers are most affected and are essentially on paid leave.
The Department of National Defence issued a directive late last week advising that only “essential core activities” will be maintained for the foreseeable future. Thus, all other staff should remain at home and stay away from the department’s remote system.
“Only DND staff conducting essential core activities should access (Defence Virtual Private Networking Infrastructure) from home. This is to minimize burden on the Information Management and IT systems,” says DND in a directive issued late last week.
At Crown-indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC), employees who aren’t delivering “essential services” are asked to only access the department’s network during a two-hour window, between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. (EDT) so they can “retrieve documents and update email.”
In the meantime, staff is “exceptionally” asked to use their personal email for unclassified information when possible.
Canada Revenue Agency asked employees who perform “non-critical services” to take paid leave from March 15 to April 5, according to spokesman Dany Morin.
Shared Services Canada — the government’s IT department — assures that it can support the teleworking employees necessary to maintain “essential services” throughout government.
But since the Treasury Board Secretariat issued a directive to all federal departments to allow teleworking when possible, SSC has been regularly imploring bureaucrats to keep VPN use to a minimum.
“When using VPN, we ask that only necessary applications be used and to keep Internet usage to what is essential — do not use streaming services and use social media only if needed,” Shared Services Canada president Paul Glover tweeted on Tuesday.
After that tweet, Shared Services confirmed to the National Post that it is in fact blocking access to certain websites while on a government VPN.
“Until network capacity is increased departments are taking action to limit non-essential network usage and reducing non-essential activities 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 adjustments as required on an ongoing basis,” the department said in an email.
Shared Services also told the National Post that the department is “working with vendors” to increase capacity throughout their network so they can handle more tasks and users throughout government in the near future.
The department wouldn’t say if it was buying or renting more network capacity. Rather, it maintained that a plan was being developed to deliver extra capacity as needed.
Daviau, the president of Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said it’s frustrating for professionals who just want to do their jobs.
“If I can see a silver lining in this, it’s that it may be the push in the back the government needs to invest more in teleworking infrastructure and technology. That way, public servants can have more flexibility as to how and where they work at all times. Necessity is the mother of invention,” Daviau said.
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