Well, if I were asked to identify the single biggest problem with "typical" web applications these days, I would say that it's that they assume too much, and trust too much, about the client.

Aside from the obvious problem of assuming/requiring that the user has the latest-greatest version of Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, these sites also rely heavily upon plug-ins and client-side (Java) code. They are putting what is really arbitrary code upon the client, expecting the client to execute it all correctly, and likely-as-not implicitly trusting whatever the client has returned.

When you're building for the web, you ought not trust the client side for anything. And as users gradually become more savvy about security, don't assume that they will let you stuff things onto their computers and to run them without restrictions.

Unfortunately, web-developers tend to make the same mistakes when building web apps, as they do when building conventional ones, viz: "If it works on my computer ..."

i installed internet explorer 6.0 using wine on my ubuntu box and it let me go through the first few screens of the application process.

15 Great.
Keep the letters going. Perhaps too, for those not from Toronto, people could email with friendly suggestions on how to improve the technology of the site, to expand it's workability. Any way to point out that it currently is not fully functional, is helpful, I feel. Even simple suggestions, such as using php instead of asp, would be good. Whatever helpful suggestion you have, just send it to them. Let them know about open source solutions, and about Linux.

16 Yes, some web development does seem a bit narcissistic (ie, if it works on my computer...)
17 Well, perhaps then it's not impossible to do on Linux. Still, Firefox is a better browser; so, stuff with Wine really should not be necessary.

But it isn't a government site.

All "government" sites have either one or both of the following:

- an address with .gov (or some variant like .on.ca)
- prominently displayed Government of Canada logo (or provincial logo)

Housing Connections is a private, non-profit organization which just happens to receive government funding. The fact that their site doesn't work with a particular browser doesn't mean anything to most people. The number of people who want to fill out those forms from Linux would only make up 0.000001% of the Canadian population (assuming +30 people actually want to).
So you see why its not worth their while to make things Linux compatible.

Us Canucks have much bigger issues to deal with at the moment :(

~YC