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Did HP Defraud the Canadian Government?
lightsaber1 writes "In this age of financial scandal in the Canadian Government it's hardly surprising to see that Hewlett-Packard is now being accused of charging the Canadian Department of National Defence for more than $160 million in software, hardware, and labour that was not delivered. The DND is confident it will get the money back, but HP is denying all responsibility, pinning the blame on an error within the DND itself. In all of this it is clear that the Government can lose track of a lot of money easily and even large companies are not above a little fraud now and then."
How the heck the guy didn't have any indication something was already paid I have no clue, but others in the finance department would try to catch as many duplicate checks on the way out as they could. As you might have guessed, the company is long gone.
How is it that the government spent $160-million, got nothing in return and no one noticed?"
It happens and not just in the public sector.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oh please. The Liberal's in Canada are considerably more left than the Republicans in the US. Of course, the Conservative Party here in Canada is also considerably more left than the Republicans in the US. This probably has something to do with less religious fundamentalism in this country.
The real difference between the Liberal's and the Conservatives in Canada is their fiscal, rather than social policies. Socially, they're very close (though, the conservatives are, unsuprisingly, slightly more socially conservative (see same-sex marriage, marijuana laws, etc)). Fiscally, they are comparable to the Dems/Reps in the US, except the Conservatives in Canada want to cut spending along with taxes, rather than just the latter.
As for the rest of it, well, that remains to be seen. There was plenty of corruption in the previous Liberal governments. Will that continue? I don't know. Would it be better with an NDP or Conservative government? I'm not so sure...
After 17 years in the DND, I'll bet against the DND in this battle. A Defense WAN ripped off from the Reserves (and then re-implemented incorrectly), Admin Clerks and Truckers in charge of IT resources, zero to none knowledge of networking, an Officer corps that believes sending email means that you are an 'e-business' and a R&D section that wonders why it's so difficult to implement Netbios nationally.
Top that off with a mentality that everything and everything has to run through either an outside consultant or a 10 year contact with a 'Quebec company' (which only means that they have a place in Quebec to send the cheques), and you have a recipe for disaster.
HP 1, DND 0.
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
Important to note that the Senate is also completely useless.
Completely useless? I would tend to disagree. From what I remember of high school history, the Senate is meant primarily as a "check" on what the House of Commons passes. The idea is that Senators are *not* elected, do not have an expiring term, and are not part of a party so that their decisions are not influenced by politics -- they are supposed to be appointed, respected members of society (which is not always the case, unfortunately). In any case, this seems to me to be much better than an elected Senate, which would simply be another House of Commons. The States seem to have a problem in that their Senate is subject to similar political wrangling as their Congress is. People don't seem to realize that you cannot simply throw democracy/elections at something and make it better (which is why I disagree with the sentiment some politicians are floating around that the Senate should be elected).
And of course, if the Senate ever did stomp on a bill that the public really wanted passed, the wave of public opinion and the media would probably result in a reform of how the Senate works.
Yes, it's true, we have TWO Republican parties in Canada.
Oh, come on. I'll probably be voting NDP as well in the next federal election, as I did in the last two elections I voted in, but comparing the Liberals and even the Conservatives to the Republicans is completely ridiculous.
Perhaps you just don't understand how incredibly reactionary and right-wing the Republicans are.
First off, Republicans don't support socialized medicare on the scale present in Canada, they generally don't like gay marriage, they are generally against gun control, they are generally in favour of harsh penalties for drug violations.
And they seem to like funding the military.
Though the Liberals haven't done much about gay marriage or drug law yet, they are talking about it, and on the rest of these issues they disagree with Republicans. If you want any evidence, look how often Ralph Klein is complaining about the Liberals doing stuff that threatens Alberta's oil industry; the thought of Republicans (at least the ones in office now) coming out against the oil industry is laughable.
The Conservatives don't really have much of a cohesive policy set yet, but after that flap with two-tier health care in 2000 they're sure as hell not going to go against the Canada Health Act, whatever Belinda Stronach says. I agree they're the most Republican of Canada's parties, though.
I agree that, far too often, the Liberals talk left, do little, and it's becoming more and more obvious they are disturbingly corrupt. Chretien (spell his name right, btw) did a bit as he was leaving, but it remains to be seen how much of that will really see the light of day. But they're not complete liars; most of them honestly are leftists.
I have high hopes for the NDP in the next election. Layton is a bit of a showman at times, but he really does seem to be building momentum.