It is unacceptable for the public sector to resign itself to losing the most senior or valuable IT employees to the private sector. These employees have the critical skills and institutional knowledge and memory. Further, a continual process of employee turnover involves non-trivial hiring and training costs. The new HR paradigm for retention and acquisition is to develop, deploy and connect.

According to a survey conducted by analyst firm IDC, on the job training for IT personnel can significantly impact their contribution and productivity. The study commissioned by software firm Symantec Corp. of Cupertino Calif., questioned more than 200 North American IT teams with two or more staff members.

For Doug Horner, politics and agriculture are in his blood. Alberta's Minister of Advanced Education and Technology, Horner and three generations before him have been involved with agriculture. His father, Dr. Hugh Horner, was a former minister of agriculture, and several uncles were also politically active. In conversation with senior writer Lisa Williams, it's clear that Horner is passionate about investing in education and technology.

For Doug Horner, politics and agriculture are in his blood. Alberta's Minister of Advanced Education and Technology, Horner and three generations before him have been involved with agriculture. His father, Dr. Hugh Horner, was a former minister of agriculture, and several uncles were also politically active. In conversation with senior writer Lisa Williams, it's clear that Horner is passionate about investing in education and technology.

Late last century, it became apparent that when government empowered its citizens, government empowered itself. What prevailed was a widespread acknowledgement that people knew more than governments did about what people wanted or needed. Citizens in the early 21st century want government to serve them as sensitively and efficiently as their bank, retail service provider or their car dealership.

Canada's federal government just doesn't seem to have the knack for numbers. Eight years of wrappings on the knuckles by the Auditor General still hasn't fixed this country's Social Insurance Number (SIN) management system, according to the latest audit.

Peter Harder, the deputy minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), has resigned. Johanne Gelinas, Canada's environment commissioner fired?

Following weeks of speculation Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has been repurposed to Intergovernmental Affairs, seemingly a casualty of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's first cabinet shuffle.

Many nurses practise the way they have always practised, the way they learned to practise, and they continue to do necessary healthcare procedures to the best of their ability and to the best of their knowledge.

It could be the only issue that Democrats and Republicans can agree on before Tuesday's midterm elections. IT helps target specific voters.

The software vulnerability life cycle starts with a newly discovered or published vulnerability and ends when machines are patched. In practice, however, all machines will never be patched, so vulnerabilities are tracked as a half-life, when for example half of vulnerable hosts are patched. According to Qualys, the current half-life for Internet-facing hosts is 19 days, down from 30 days a couple of years ago. However, we lose this race to the hackers as the average latency now is only six days from discovery to attacks. It is important to note that 80 per cent of attacks occur during the first half-life. So if you are a target - and government departments are - you had better be patched or shield for a known vulnerability right away.