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A recent report from Canada's Task Force 2000 indicates that 90% of Canadian businessmen know about y2k. About half plan to take action. About 10% have actually taken some action.
It is obvious that Canada is not going to make the 2000 deadline.
But one official claimed that Canada is doing great, compared to the rest of the world. Sadly, he's probably correct.
The article raises the question of the domino effect in the international economy. What if Korea isn't compliant?
Nobody asked the Big Question: What if Japan's banks aren't compliant?
This is on C/Net (Feb. 3).
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"The situation is not business as usual," said Douglas Lagassé, director of research at the Year 2000 Research Group. "People will get nervous in a year or so from now, and that may affect the economic system more than the problem itself." . . .
"I think it's great," said Gaylen Duncan, president and CEO of Information Technology Association of Canada. "It's a wake up call to Canadian businesses."
Lagassé agrees, but he believes the government is leaving most companies on their own. "The government is not creating any accountability for the organizations that have created the infrastructures, like the transportation system, the telecommunications system, the news system and Hydro, and I think their should be more interest placed in making sure those companies comply."
In a Statistics Canada survey of more than 2,000 companies, 90 per cent said they are aware of the millenium bug but only half said they plan to take action. Of those, 10 per cent have put a formal plan in place. . . .
The task force also asks that lending institutions, the insurance and legal communities, and accounting firms refuse dealings with any business without a formal Y2K plan of action.
"I think if this doesn't work, we'll have to escalate 'should' to 'must,'" Duncan said, "but I don't think we'll have to do that. We've got so many armies going out and asking for action plans."
Canada is doing the best job it can, Lagassé said. Compared with the rest of the world, it's doing a great job. But an understanding of business interdependency is of the utmost importance. "Canada can have its whole house in order -- Y2K OK -- but if Canada wants to deal with Korea, and Korea is down, it will bottleneck, which will domino into a massive disruption. The possibility of that is quite high."
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