Québec has a different culture

Usually I'll refrain from rants but this one was too good to pass by.

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Let's face it, Québec's culture is different. Here's a sample that shows it in it's most intricate way:

How to pay your deduction at source (as an employer, which I am) for Federal (Canada) and Provincial (Québec) governments

Federal way

a. Only once: you had to enter your company's number into your bank account invoices list. No big deal here.

1. Calculate how much you retained for federal taxes and IE from your employee's salary for the month. Just retain the whole summation, not indivual numbers.

2. Login into your bank account

3. Write the amount and click "Pay".

Provincial way

a. Only once: you had to register your account on ClicNet (which shouldn't be a problem but it is: you need the serial number of the last taxes-related document that the provincial government sent you)

1. Do the summation of how much you retained for each of those amounts: provincial taxes, RRQ, RQAP and FSS from your employee's salary for the month. You need the individual amounts.

2. Login to ClicNet


3. Follow through eight secured, slow web pages visibly done in ASP.NET by a teenager to enter each separate amounts

4. Specifically ask that you want to pay at your bank's web site, and which bank

5. Finally receive a 19 digits confirmation number after dismissing useless window that pop up. Sometimes the web server goes down so you have to do the whole thing again later.

6. Login into your bank account

7. Enter the 19 digits confirmation number

8. Enter the summation of provincial taxes, RRQ, RQAP and FSS (you hadn't calculated it before) and click "Pay"


The subtility here is that the provincial government wants to know how much you give to each of their internal accounts right now, not at the end of the year. As an employer it's the least of your business but the government wants you to know.

I need to add that the provincial step only needs to be done in Québec province, as I am aware of. Employers based in other province only need to do the payment to the federal government. Also, don't be fooled, the province's bureaucracy is not that bad, well, just sometimes, and the province is actually a great place to live!