OTTAWA — Ottawa is conceding a major federal IT failure that shut down border security systems, grounded travelers and stranded commercial shipments for days last fall was caused by staff error — but no one was fired and no compensation was paid.Blacklock's Reporter says a joint internal report says a routine software upgrade mishandled by Shared Services Canada triggered a cascading breakdown that crippled Canada Border Services Agency systems from September 28 into early October, snarling airports and border crossings nationwide.“This outage resulted in delays for airlines, airports and returning international travelers,” the report stated, noting passengers were unable to board flights at some foreign and domestic airports through early September 29.The disruption quickly spread to commercial trade. According to the Joint Report on Canada Border Services Agency IT Outages, trucks, rail traffic and marine shipments faced severe delays at ports of entry across the country, with southern Ontario and Manitoba border crossings among the hardest hit. Some delays stretched for hours or even days between September 29 and October 6..Federal managers say the crisis began when an unnamed Shared Services Canada employee failed to apply a required software patch before a system upgrade. The omission corrupted live traveler and commercial data, knocking critical border systems offline.The situation worsened the following day when Shared Services implemented an emergency security patch on agency firewalls. That move severed communications with several commercial airlines, making it difficult for carriers to access federal systems needed to board passengers for both international and domestic flights.System instability and intermittent outages persisted until October 5, leaving international travelers stuck in airports and creating a weeklong backlog of commercial shipments at highway crossings, rail yards, marine ports and airports. Boarding pass kiosks across the country were shut down, and some truckers were delayed as long as 46 hours, with financial losses never disclosed..Despite the scale of the disruption, no disciplinary action was taken and no travelers or shippers were compensated.Shared Services Canada says it has “lessons learned” and promises improvements by March 31, including better training and tighter controls on IT changes. Managers said the new measures are intended to improve scrutiny, collaboration and communication to prevent similar “human errors” in the future.The report was blunt about systemic shortcomings. Quality controls on IT changes were described as lacking, communications with airlines and shippers as insufficient and inadequate, and internal coordination as poorly defined and lacking rigour.Perhaps most damning, the report concluded Shared Services Canada does not fully understand the real-world consequences of its failures. The department, it said, is “not sufficiently aware of the real world business impacts” of system outages or the national and economic security risks Canada faces when border digital tools go dark.
