The Government is Watching. No, Really.

It seems as though the government of Canada has actually started to get their systems and people talking to one another. Check out this little story that my dad told me.

My dad was out of work at the beginning of the year and started taking Unemployment Insurance. He was looking for a new gig but decided to take a little break from the job hunt and visit my sister in Israel because she had just had her first kid. He was out of the country for two weeks. A few weeks after his return he found a job.

Last week he got a letter from the UI people saying that Customs and Border Control indicates that he was out of the country for two weeks thus violating the terms of UI, namely that he be “ready, willing and able to work.” Obviously if he was in Israel he was unable to be able and he owed two weeks of UI back to the government.

I have to give the government a big round of applause for getting the business intelligence, systems and process together to mine that information share it among departments and take action on it.

Of course, my father doesn’t see it that way.