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Canada (English)

IT services for businesses in Canada

Active Directory audits, Windows 11 and Microsoft 365 projects, virtualization and security work for small and medium-sized businesses in Quebec and across Canada, run remotely from France by an independent provider, with on-site visits possible on quotation.

Canada (English)

Key facts

A French business, working remotely

SolidKern is the trading name of an independent IT service provider based in Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, France. We have no office, establishment or representative in Canada, and we say so up front: everything we do for a Canadian business starts remotely, through secure remote access that you open and close yourself, shared documents and video calls. When a project genuinely needs someone in the room, for example a server room inventory or a hands-on workshop, an on-site visit in Canada can be added to the quote, with travel costs stated in advance.

Our entire catalogue is available to Canadian businesses: audits, migrations, virtualization, virtual desktops, Microsoft 365 and Intune, awareness training and IT project management. Each service is a project with a scope, deliverables and a price set before work starts. We work only with businesses, not with consumers.

What we do not offer

In Canada, as everywhere outside France, we do not offer ongoing engagement: day-to-day administration or monitoring of your systems, on-call duty, or a guaranteed recovery time after an incident. These call for someone who can be on your premises within hours. A local provider will serve you better for that, and we are happy to work alongside yours.

Working across time zones

Canada spans six time zones, from six hours behind Paris in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Ottawa to nine hours behind in Vancouver. We adapt to your schedule: calls and workshops are set at times that suit your team, agreed in advance, and the rest of the work moves forward in writing in between, so you often find a report, a configuration review or answers to your questions at the start of the next day.

Planned changes to production, such as a server role cut-over, happen in a window agreed with you, and the rollback plan is written before the first step. For a few weeks in March and from late October to early November, the gap shrinks by one hour, because Europe and North America change clocks on different dates. First contact is through the contact page.

In English or French

We work with you in English or French: calls, quotes, reports, documentation and workshops. In Quebec, the Charter of the French language has provided since June 1, 2023 that a contract of adhesion is first given in French. Whether it applies to a provider established outside Quebec, between businesses, is uncertain: in any case, our terms and quotes are first provided in French, and you may expressly ask to be bound by their English version. Our French-language pages for Canada are at SolidKern Canada (français).

Quotes, invoicing and payment

Our prices are the same for a Canadian business as for a French one. They are set and invoiced in euros, never in Canadian dollars: the amount on the quote is the amount on the invoice, and your bank converts at its own rate; bank and currency conversion charges on your side are borne by you. VAT not applicable (article 293 B of the French General Tax Code); the tax arrangements specific to Canada and to your business are set out on the quote, before any commitment.

Unless agreed otherwise, 30% is due on order and the balance by the milestones set in the quote, by bank transfer. Starting prices for every service are on our pricing page, the applicable terms are in our terms of service, and the free 30-minute discovery call is booked from the contact page.

The Canadian legal context of your IT projects

We are not lawyers and do not give legal advice. What we do is implement the technical side: access control, logging, backups, encryption, incident procedures and documentation. Knowing the rules that frame your project helps us scope it correctly.

PIPEDA

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) applies to private-sector organizations that collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities. Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta have private-sector laws recognized as substantially similar, which generally apply instead within those provinces. Since November 1, 2018, organizations subject to PIPEDA must record every breach of security safeguards, keep those records for two years, and report the breach to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, notifying the people affected, when it creates a real risk of significant harm. An Active Directory audit or an IT audit often starts by checking that you could actually tell who accessed what.

Quebec: Law 25

Law 25 modernized the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector; its provisions came into force in stages, from September 22, 2022 to September 22, 2024. It provides in particular for a person in charge of the protection of personal information, governance policies, a privacy impact assessment for any information system project and before any communication of personal information outside Quebec, and a register of confidentiality incidents. Three of its obligations bear directly on a project run with us:

  • security measures: a business protects personal information with reasonable measures, proportionate to its sensitivity; this is the core of our audits and deployments;

  • confidentiality incidents: the business takes measures to reduce the risk, notifies the Commission d'accès à l'information (CAI) and the people concerned if there is a risk of serious injury, and records every incident in a register; when we work on your systems, we notify your person in charge of the protection of personal information without delay of any incident we become aware of;

  • communication outside Quebec: we are established in France; before communicating personal information to us, for example by giving us access to a directory or a mailbox, your business carries out that assessment and enters into a written agreement, which we feed with information about our security measures.

The CAI can impose administrative monetary penalties of up to 10 million dollars or 2% of worldwide turnover for the preceding fiscal year (section 90.12), and penal fines range from 15,000 dollars to 25 million dollars or 4% of that turnover (section 91), whichever is greater. Our page on Quebec Law 25 and IT security covers these points in detail.

Ontario: AODA

Since January 1, 2021, businesses and non-profits in Ontario with 50 or more employees must make their public websites meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, with two exceptions (live captions and pre-recorded audio descriptions), under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). This concerns your website more than your infrastructure, but it is worth knowing when a Microsoft 365 or intranet project touches public-facing content.

Where we are most useful remotely

The services below lend themselves particularly well to remote delivery for a Canadian business:

All our services and their starting prices are listed on the services page.

For your country

Quebec Law 25 and the security of personal information

Law 25 strengthened the obligations of Quebec businesses regarding personal information. Behind these obligations sit very concrete IT questions: who can access what, what gets logged, where the data is hosted and how you react to an incident.

Frequently asked questions

Can you work on our systems from France?

Yes. Audits, migrations, Microsoft 365 and Intune, virtualization and awareness training are delivered through secure remote access and video calls. An on-site visit in Canada can be added to the quote when the project needs it, with its costs set out in the quote before any commitment.

Can you administer our IT on a day-to-day basis?

No. Outside France, we do not take on day-to-day administration or monitoring, on-call duty or guaranteed recovery times. Each service is a project with a defined scope, and we can work alongside your local provider.

When can we talk, given the time difference?

At a time that suits you, agreed in advance: we adapt to your schedule, whatever your time zone. Written follow-up continues between calls.

How is invoicing handled for a Canadian company?

Invoices are in euros, never in Canadian dollars, VAT not applicable (article 293 B of the French General Tax Code). The amount on the quote is the amount on the invoice; the tax arrangements specific to Canada and to your business are set out on the quote, before you commit.

Is working with a provider in France compatible with Law 25?

The law frames the communication of personal information outside Quebec: your business first carries out a privacy impact assessment and enters into a written agreement. We provide the information about our security measures; the assessment remains yours.

Can you make us compliant with Law 25 or PIPEDA?

We do not give legal advice or guarantee compliance. We implement the technical measures these laws call for, such as access control, logging, backups and incident procedures, and document them so that your legal adviser or person in charge of the protection of personal information can rely on them.

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