CRA’s 100-day plan results are not the presents Canadians want or need

The Canada Revenue Agency’s 100-day plan is yet another case study in bureaucratic and political self-congratulation, writes Kim Moody. Photo by Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS files

Article content

I was chatting with a friend last week who asked me, “Why do you dislike the Canada Revenue Agency so much?”

Article content

I was a bit shocked since I really don’t. I quite admire and respect the important job the CRA has to do — administering Canada’s complex tax laws is very difficult — its people and its leadership. I’ve tried to make that clear in all my writings, but also in my day-to-day interactions with them.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Over the years, however, I have not been shy to point out where the CRA needs to improve and that’s likely the cause of my friend’s misunderstanding.

Article content

Article content

The CRA has had massive budget increases in recent years, so one would logically think Canadians have received improved service. Nope. Instead, we have a bloated CRA with a call centre that is virtually unapproachable, we have new CRA agents who are very poorly trained and many agents often work from home with obvious unprofessional distractions.

Article content

Some may not have any issues with CRA employees working from home, but I do. Working from home is not a matter of the modern workplace or getting with the times. Instead, working with colleagues in a face-to-face environment is simply the best way for people to learn, collaborate on difficult issues, ensure proper training/supervision and provide the right environment for overall good outcomes.

Article content

It is now routine for taxpayer audits to be horribly conducted with resulting proposed reassessments that are laughable. Unfortunately, this puts taxpayers in a position where they are forced to object to the reassessments. Earlier this month, we found out taxpayer objections have spiked. This puts a further strain on the CRA and, of course, taxpayer resources.

Article content

But back to the call centres. On Sept. 2, Finance Minister François Champagne announced on his X account that he was asking the CRA to come up with a 100-day plan to improve its call centre performance and other services. At the time, I was refreshed by the blunt assessment that the CRA needed to improve, but I was obviously skeptical that the 100-day plan would be nothing more than a political exercise.

Article content

Article content

Article content

The CRA created a 100-day plan website where it tracked the progress that it was apparently making and there were some improvements, but it was obvious the agency was more concerned about treating the symptoms rather than tackling the long-standing and systemic issues that led to the symptoms.

Article content

Article content

As a result, I predicted that when the 100th day arrived — Dec. 11 — there would be a lot of self-congratulations by the CRA and Champagne for their “successful treatment of the symptoms.” But I was hopeful that wouldn’t be the case and that a longer-term plan would be presented to tackle the root causes of poor taxpayer service.

Article content

Fast forward to late October and the auditor general released a scathing report on the CRA’s call centre performance and other standards. We now know why Champagne called for a 100-day plan in the first place: he and the CRA had obviously been provided an advance copy of the report and were trying to get ahead of the damage. Yep, politics was indeed driving the bus as suspected.

Article content

From that point forward, I was confident my prediction of self-congratulatory slaps on the back would be the result on Dec. 11.