Chan's Personal Blog

The Conservatives introduced plans for rebates of up $2,000 from the government on the purchase of new fuel-efficient vehicles and a levy on gas guzzlers.

For example, the buyer of a 2007 Toyota Prius or a Honda Civic Hybrid could get $2,000. Both of those vehicles consume 4.5 litres of fuel or less per 100 kilometres driven, according to Natural Resources Canada's fuel consumption guide.

At the other end of the spectrum, new passenger vehicles that consume more than 13 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres will be hit with a $1,000 levy. Trucks will be exempt. The rate of the levy will rise to $4,000 on vehicles with fuel consumption ratings of 16 litres per 100 kilometres or higher.

The rebate plan will cost the government about $160 million over the next two years, while Ottawa expects to collect $215 million from the levy over those years.

Forget shuttling kids between sports and tutors or enduring a long commute to live near a better school: improving a child's chance of success may be as simple as a regular, leisurely family dinner.

That may seem a quaint throwback, but parents and organizations are rallying around the family dinner and promoting it in fight against over-scheduled lives.

"You have people who are basically workaholics and have lost all their priorities. They have lost all touch with what's important," said Bonnie Michaels, a work-life consultant. "Kids are over-scheduled and over-maxed terribly."

Researchers say piling on kids' activities to impress college admission boards or working late to advance a career cause family connections to suffer.

"Eating together always provided a grounding for family members," said Michaels.

A national study of kids between 3 and 12 found that more meal time at home was the single strongest predictor of better achievement scores, ahead of time studying or in church.

Researchers found a strong link between eating at least five dinners a week with a parent and children who are less likely to use drugs and develop good eating habits. [...]

Experts say the best meals are enjoyed at home with the television off and that children should be encouraged to chat, not badgered to eat broccoli or explain poor grades.

A computer malfunction has forced Canada’s tax agency to shut down all online tax filing as Canadians race to file their personal income tax returns by the April 30 deadline.

And if the problem isn’t resolved within a few days, the agency may have to look at options, including a possible extension of the tax deadline.

“We’re not there yet, but obviously if this lasts longer than a few days we’ll have to start to think about measures, but not at this point,” Michel Dorais, commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency, said Tuesday.

Dorais ordered the shutdown Monday night when the agency discovered “irregularities” that could affect the 75 data bases that handle Canadians’ personal tax information.

The shutdown affects the millions of Canadians who file their tax returns online using the agency’s Efile, Netfile and My Account services.

Dorais said technical experts have yet to pinpoint the problem, but stressed it is an “infrastructure” problem. He said it may be related to maintenance work that was done over the weekend.

He added that causes such as intrusion, a computer virus or a hacker breaking into the system have been ruled out. [...]

For now, the agency has posted a notice of the shutdown on its website and intends to issue daily updates to the media on the steps it’s taking. Canadians who want to file can send in paper returns or wait until the problem is fixed and file electronically.

Dorais said the tax agency has been working around the clock to find the cause of the problem which is “mixing up” data.

“The integrity of the information is not affected. The information is there but it’s not always in the right place,” said Dorais. “It’s like the table of contents or the index (of those data bases) have been mixed up so they don’t correspond to each other... so I froze everything for a couple of days…until we diagnose the problem and then gradually bring them back on line.”

The tax season typically kicks off after the March 1 deadline for RRSPs and reaches a peak in late April. The biggest volume of tax returns typically arrives after the Easter weekend.

A computer glitch of this magnitude could be a serious setback for the agency, which has watched its online services explode in recent years. The agency handles 23 million personal tax returns a year and about half of those are filed using Netfile and Efile.