EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on Public Accounts NUMBER 011 1st SESSION 45th PARLIAMENT Thursday, October 23, 2025 Le jeudi 23 octobre 2025 Standing Committee on Public Accounts CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE October 23, 2025 Committee NUMBER 011 NUMBER 011 NUMÉRO 011 11 23 10 2025 2025/10/23 11:00:00 House Of Commons Comité permanent des comptes publics Standing Committee on Public Accounts PACP Chair John Williamson 1 45 PUBLIC PART ONLY -

PARTIE PUBLIQUE SEULEMENT

(1100) [ Translation ]

The Chair (John Williamson (Saint John—St. Croix, CPC)) :

I now call the meeting to order. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 11 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts. [ English ] Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. I'd like to remind participants of the following points. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. All comments should be addressed through the chair. This, of course, doesn't apply in the rounds, when you're going back and forth.

I allow a lot of latitude here for members to interact directly with the witnesses, through me, of course. Raise your hand if you wish to speak, whether that is in the room or virtually. [ Translation ] Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(

g) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, October 21, the committee will now proceed to consider the report on the Canada Revenue Agency’s communication centres, taken from the fall 2025 reports of the Auditor General of Canada. [ English ] I would like to welcome our witnesses. From the Office of the Auditor General, we have Karen Hogan, the Auditor General of Canada. It's nice to have you back again today. We also have Andrew Hayes, deputy auditor general, and Mathieu Lequain, director. It's nice to see the three of you again.

From the Canada Revenue Agency, we have Bob Hamilton, commissioner of revenue and chief executive officer. It's nice to see you again as well. We have Maxime Guénette, assistant commissioner, service, innovation and integration branch, by video conference. It's nice to see you. We also have Hugo Pagé, assistant commissioner and chief financial officer, finance and administration branch, and Melanie Serjak, assistant commissioner, assessment, benefit and service branch. I understand two of you have opening remarks today. Ms. Hogan will begin, followed by Mr. Hamilton. Ms.

Hogan, you have the floor for approximately five minutes, please.

Karen Hogan (Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General) :

Good morning, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to discuss our report on Canada Revenue Agency's contact centres, which was tabled earlier this week. I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. [ Translation ] As part of our audit, we examined whether the Canada Revenue Agency’s communication centres provided Canadians with accurate and timely information about their personal taxes, benefits, and business taxes.

The Canada Revenue Agency has a duty to help individuals and businesses meet their tax obligations and claim benefits. I am concerned that, despite a new telephone system and other improvements, Canadians are still waiting too long for answers to their tax questions. The agency’s service standard was to answer 65% of calls in 15 minutes or less. In 2024-25, callers who chose to speak to an agent waited an average of about 31 minutes, and only 18% of them were able to reach an agent within the standard time frame.

In addition, callers did not receive real-time updates on their position in the queue, which limited their ability to properly assess whether it was better to wait, use self-service options, or end the call. (1105) [ English ] Auditors from our office placed calls to contact centres and asked general tax and benefit questions. We found that agent responses to individual tax questions were accurate only 17% of the time, and responses to business tax or benefit questions were accurate just over half of the time.

To test the accuracy of agents' responses to questions specific to an account, we reviewed a sample of recorded conversations. In contrast, we found that accuracy was much higher when questions pertained to specific accounts. The audit also found that in assessing contact centre agents' performance, the CRA placed greater importance on how closely they adhered to their

schedule for their shifts and breaks than on the accuracy and completeness of information they provided to callers. This does not encourage a strong commitment to quality service. Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you very much, Ms. Hogan. Mr. Hamilton, you have the floor for approximately five minutes, please.

Bob Hamilton (Commissioner of Revenue and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Revenue Agency) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to present on behalf of the Canada Revenue Agency our actions in response to the Auditor General’s audit. Let me say right at the outset that we accept the findings and recommendations in the audit. We acknowledge the importance of delivering quality and timely service to Canadians. With nearly 200 million service transactions annually, obviously service delivery is central to our mandate.

In this regard, I just want to say how much we appreciate the efforts of all our employees, including contact centre agents, in their commitment and dedication to delivering that service, in some cases in very challenging circumstances. We are committed to supporting them and to providing better tools for them to be able to carry out their mission as we see technology and other processes evolve. [ Translation ] To address the Auditor General’s recommendations, the agency is building on its 100-day service improvement plan.

This plan is structured around four key pillars: increasing the ability to answer more calls; expanding online self-service options; addressing root causes of service issues; and accelerating service modernization. [ English ] Pillars one and two will provide short-term results. Pillars three and four focus more on longer-term impacts, because life will go on in terms of delivering service at the CRA beyond the 100 days. We are committed to results in the short term. Let me mention a little bit about that. In the 100-day plan, we have increased the number of contact centre representatives to answer calls.

As a result, we are now exceeding our target of 70% of the calls being answered, which is good. The agency is also enhancing its self-service digital options, including optimizing the website, adding features in My Account and expanding AI-based chat support. These are all contributing to our performing better than what we had hoped for in terms of the 100-day plan. There are some other improvements to date. Live chat support through My Account is now available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Users with locked accounts can now regain access by re-registering, eliminating the need to call.

Taxpayers with debts of $1,000 or more can now set up payment arrangements directly through My Account, bypassing the need to talk to a collections officer. By early November, the GenAI chatbot on Canada.ca will be able to answer a broader range of questions, from 6,000 current agency pages to over 18,000 pages. You can see that a number of factors are contributing to improved performance in the short term. We hope to continue those and build on them in the longer term. I want to address the issue of accuracy.

In the short term, efforts are also under way to improve the accuracy of responses provided by our contact centres. While we agree with the Auditor General's findings, I think it's important to highlight certain factors that relate to the accuracy questions and that we hope will help reassure Canadians. In 2018, the agency implemented a new telephone system with call recording, a quality assurance program, targeted training and technology-driven oversight. During the last fiscal year, the agency evaluated over 100,000 calls as part of this quality assurance program.

Of these, 80% were related to specific taxpayer files. The Auditor General mentioned that group. According to our results, these calls achieved an accuracy rate of 94%. The Auditor General confirmed this higher rate of quality and accuracy in the report. However, for the other 20% of our calls, which are general and not account-specific, the Auditor General carried out a survey of about 167 questions. The findings there—17% for individuals is referenced—are concerning to us. I don't want to minimize that at all, but I do want to just put it into context.

In the vast majority of our calls, which are account-specific, we have good processes in place to check accuracy. The Auditor General has surfaced an issue on the general accounts, and we are working with the study the Auditor General did to identify some places for improvement there. We are taking that very, very seriously. (1110) [ Translation ] To respond to the Auditor General's findings, our quality assurance program is refocusing its evaluation criteria to emphasize the accuracy and completeness of information shared with callers.

Evaluations will more effectively inform improvements, including updated training materials, revised procedures and individualized coaching. [ English ] In pillar three, it was also crucial for the agency to identify and resolve the root causes of service-related problems. In this regard, we get calls oftentimes for reasons that happen upstream. There's a problem in processing, people are looking for information and they call. We want to try to eliminate those problems upstream so people don't need to call.

Among these causes, we observed that the agency’s high call volume is driven by population growth, evolving tax complexity and a lack of widespread self-serve tools. As more Canadians seek personalized support, especially for nuanced topics, agents respond to longer, more detailed calls.

Many issues require expert guidance beyond digital platforms, reinforcing the need for accessible, responsive service channels. [ Translation ] To address these challenges, the agency is reducing tax adjustment backlogs by encouraging Canadians to use digital tools for faster processing; reallocating resources to high-demand areas such as Canada child benefit claims and disability tax credit applications; and analyzing and leveraging expertise as we aim to identify how technology and simpler processes—such as online and self-serve options—can resolve issues before individuals feel the need to call. [ English ] Finally, under pillar four, we are looking again at the longer-term modernization strategy.

The agency assisted Shared Services Canada with the award of a new competitive contract for the contact centre as a service platform—a cutting-edge, secure and reliable cloud-based technology used by leading organizations globally. The agency will support Shared Services Canada in improving processes and clarifying roles and responsibilities to strengthen oversight and cost management of contracts, with a revised agreement to be finalized in January.

This will help provide a solid foundation for the contact centre representatives, who will be equipped with state-of-the-art tools to carry out their mandate, and it will allow Canadians to seamlessly move across service channels, improving their experience. The 100-day service improvement plan is already giving results in the short term, as I mentioned, through a blend of retaining some additional employees and really driving hard on technology and investments in digitalized processes to try to prevent calls or make them happen more quickly.

There is a lot of progress there, but we are also looking beyond the 100 days to do things that help us in the longer term, as a new filing season approaches, to make sure we're ready for that, and some of these things can help us in that vein. I'll stop there. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. Everyone, my plan today is to get through four rounds. That will take us to about one o'clock. As usual, finish your question in your time, and I will allow for an answer. I will, of course, look for a focused answer. I do allow witnesses time to finish, but if it goes on, of course, we'll have to end it. Then we will have a quick in camera meeting at one o'clock to discuss priorities. Without further ado, the first round is three members with six minutes each. (1115) [ Translation ] Mr. Deltell, you have the floor for six minutes.

Gérard Deltell (Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, CPC) :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to greet my colleagues and the witnesses. First, I would like to thank and salute the honest Canadians who pay their taxes on time. I would also like to sincerely salute all the workers at the Canada Revenue Agency who show up every day to serve the common interest of Canadians. However, I have a lot to say against the organization of the Canada Revenue Agency. I have been in politics for 17 years and have seen dozens of auditors general’s reports, but I have never seen a report as devastating as this one.

The problems it highlights directly affect the most vulnerable among us. They affect citizens who do not have access to the services of a professional accountant because they cannot afford them. They directly affect seniors, who are always a little apprehensive when it comes to filing their tax returns. They directly affect families who live from paycheque to paycheque and need government assistance. This report tells us that last June, 95% of calls to the Canada Revenue Agency were not answered within the service standard.

Worse still, when people did manage to speak to someone, they were given incorrect information four times out of five. That is terrible. We’re not talking about a hamburger that’s missing ketchup. We’re talking about accurate information about people’s tax returns. Everyone is already nervous when they call the Canada Revenue Agency, but now they’re not getting the right answer four times out of five. Aren’t you ashamed, Mr. Hamilton?

Bob Hamilton :

We are disappointed with the agency’s performance over the past few months and during the period reviewed by the Auditor General. We have made considerable efforts to improve the situation. It is important that people have the opportunity to communicate with the agency. During this period, we have certainly looked for ways to make our information system more efficient. For example, before a call is made to the agency, it should be possible to obtain more accurate information on the web and from the self-service options of the voice recognition system.

Ultimately, however, it is necessary to have staff available to answer calls. I want to point out that in more than 80% of calls concerning a taxpayer’s account, the agency performed well, which is not insignificant. That said, this is not to downplay the study conducted by the Auditor General. We tested a small sample of 167 people, and the results of 20% of those calls were not very good, as you mentioned. However, we are committed to finding the source of these problems and correcting them, because this is an important issue.

It is important for Canadians to know that most of our call centre agents provide good answers. We are not perfect. The system is very complex, and people’s circumstances and situations are complex. However, I believe that we are performing well in terms of these calls. We are committed to continuing to improve the situation.

Gérard Deltell :

Mr. Hamilton, first of all, I would like to thank you and congratulate you for responding in French, in very respectable French. Thank you very much for your efforts. However, I am not satisfied with what you are saying. Above all, it does not satisfy Canadians, four out of five of whom have been given incorrect information. Citizens receive incorrect information and enter it on their tax returns, only to realize later that it was not correct.

When the Canada Revenue Agency reviews a return and finds an error, an error made in good faith by the citizen, it then sends the citizen a bill that they must pay, even though it is not their fault, but the agency’s. Who is going to pay for the mistake you made? Is it the honest citizen or the agency, whose employees are unable to do the job they are paid to do?

Bob Hamilton :

I would ask my colleague Ms. Serjak to answer your question in more detail. Obviously, it is a problem for the agency when someone receives the wrong information. We have processes in place to resolve issues when someone receives incorrect information from the agency, but they are not ideal.

Gérard Deltell :

One moment, Mr. Hamilton. The person is acting in good faith. They receive false information and include it in their tax return. Later, they are told that the information is incorrect. Do you ask the people who have been misled by the agency where the error came from? Do you ask them if it was a civil servant who gave them the false information? You cannot imagine what this situation means to someone who receives a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency, opens it and realizes that there is a penalty, even though they did everything in good faith. Have you assessed the total millions of dollars you have taken from Canadians based on false information?

Bob Hamilton :

I am sensitive to the frustration of people who find themselves in such circumstances, and it is important to reduce the number of cases. I just want to say that if such a situation arises again, we have processes in place for taxpayers—

(1120) Gérard Deltell :

How can the taxpayer know whether it is their mistake or yours? When someone has not filled out their tax return correctly, you send them a bill while acknowledging that it is your fault, but they are the ones who have to pay the bill. That doesn’t make sense, Mr. Hamilton.

Bob Hamilton :

We acknowledge it when we’ve made a specific mistake.

Gérard Deltell :

If you acknowledge that you—

The Chair :

I apologize for interrupting you, Mr. Deltell, but your speaking time has expired. [ English ] I'm sure we'll come back to you later on in the rotation. I'll turn now to Ms. Yip. You have the floor for six minutes, please.

Jean Yip (Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.) :

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming. Thank you, Ms. Hogan, for this very important report, and I also want to thank Mr. Hamilton for acknowledging the real issues and challenges that Canadians are facing with the CRA contact centres and not waiting to present a plan. Ms. Hogan, for the benefit of Canadians watching at home, why do you think there were so many problems with the CRA contact centres?

Karen Hogan :

I don't think we were able to uncover all the root causes that could be addressed to help improve service. Obviously, the number of agents available to answer calls has an impact on timeliness and ability, but there are also the tools that agents are provided with. One of our findings did relate to the fact that once you reached an agent, a call lasted about 17 minutes, but about 30% of that time was spent on hold as the agent was looking for answers. If the tools could be improved, I think some of the service quality and speed could be improved.

The sooner you end that call, the sooner you move to the next caller. I think that at times the authentication process slowed down the ability and probably increased frustration for some individuals. If an agent can't authenticate, they have to ask general questions, and that could be even more frustrating when someone is calling for a very specific purpose. Finally, while there was a lot of work done in reviewing the quality of calls by looking at recorded calls, we found that there was very little actionable feedback or coaching provided in those quality review reports.

As a result, there was little mentoring or training done for staff. I think that if you were able to improve all of that, it would contribute to a better experience for callers.

Jean Yip :

Thank you. Mr. Hamilton, given what Ms. Hogan just mentioned, does the 100-day plan encompass that, and when did this plan start?

Bob Hamilton :

The 100-day plan does cover this. As I indicated in my remarks, we're also interested in what happens after 100 days and in trying to make changes that will help us in the 100 days and beyond. You asked when it started. It started on September 2, and it ends on December 11, I believe, so we're about halfway through the 100 days. I would echo a lot of what the Auditor General said in terms of what we need to do to fix this. One is that having more agents is good.

You can see a correlation between how many people we have on the phones and the number of calls that are answered, and we've seen some short-term impacts from extending the terms of some employees. There are also other parts of that, as the Auditor General mentioned. There are the tools that we give people. It is true that when we have a new contact centre platform, it will be more sophisticated. It will allow agents to do more things and do them more quickly, so that's good.

There are also some technology tools, such as robotic processing and artificial intelligence, that we can provide to our agents to help them better sort through the information they need in order to respond quickly, efficiently and accurately to the taxpayer. It's a combination of things. I think it would be wrong to think that all we need to do is just hire more agents. I think we also need to look at our processes and our technologies to make sure that they are as efficient as possible. However, certainly agents are at the centre of this, and if we have more, we can answer more calls.

Regarding training, we do take the feedback seriously. There are things we can do to improve in terms of call recording and training our people better. We think we're doing a pretty good job, but we can always do better, and we're using this opportunity from the AG's report to examine what we do on that front and how we can help our employees more.

(1125) Jean Yip :

You mentioned that we're at the midway point of this plan. Have there been improvements at this time? Is there any data or information you could share?

Bob Hamilton :

Yes. Maybe I would ask my colleague Melanie to elaborate, but we're pleased with the results of the 100-day plan so far. I think I mentioned that we're now answering over 70% of our calls, which was the goal. The goal was to be at 70%, and we're actually over that. That can go up and down, so we're watching it carefully. That's a result of having new agents, and also of some things that we've put in place—new tools that taxpayers can use and new tools that our agents can use.

The Auditor General mentioned the validation process; if you get locked out of your account, there is now a new tool that can be used to reinstate your account without having to call us. Another part of our plan is to see if we can get information or tools to people so that they don't have to call us and we can solve some problems upstream, such as with processing T1 adjustments, or what have you, and avoid the calls. It has to be part of that strategy. We're seeing some of these things work. Some of them are already in place, and some are in pilot stages, but we're very pleased with the results.

We post those results publicly on the website every week where people can see them, because we are also trying to be very transparent. We're not trying to fool people into thinking we're perfect; we're trying to be transparent about where we're having successes and where we're having challenges, and we just keep working on it.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. That is the time. It went by quickly. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for six minutes.

Sébastien Lemire (Abitibi—Témiscamingue, BQ) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Hogan, and thank you to your team. Mr. Hamilton, I would like to talk to you about the accuracy of information and services. Let’s recap for those following our work. The Auditor General’s report highlights a huge systemic problem concerning, in particular, the performance evaluations of agents who respond to calls. Thus, a Canada Revenue Agency employee can obtain a passing grade on their evaluation if they work the expected number of hours, take their breaks at the right time, and end the call at the right time, i.e., as quickly as possible.

When responding quickly, they must behave appropriately, but if they fail to provide the correct answer, it does not matter, as is the case in more than 80% of general questions about personal income tax. If customers are dissatisfied with the information they receive, but the employee communicates well and follows procedures and policies, they receive a score of over 60%, which is above the passing grade, and can thus advance in their career. Therefore, data accuracy and performance are not valued. Do you see a problem with this?

Bob Hamilton :

Yes. I think I made it clear that there are certainly issues that need to be addressed. We believe we have the procedures and innovations in place to resolve them. I will ask Ms. Serjak to supplement my answer with more details.

(1130) Melanie Serjak (Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit, and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency) :

I would like to remind you that we have a program in place to evaluate calls and the information provided by our agents to Canadians. To do this, we listen to more than 130,000 calls per year, which provide us with information on agent performance and help us determine the training and support they need. The percentage of the rating allocated to the quality of information provided to Canadians is 45%. Quality encompasses several elements, such as the accuracy of the information provided and whether complete answers are given to clients’ questions.

That said, we take the Auditor General’s findings into account, but there is always room for improvement. We evaluate quality on a monthly basis. I would like to tell the committee that we take the training of our employees very seriously. When they start their jobs, they undergo two to 13 weeks of classroom training, followed by several weeks of professional coaching. In this way, we want to ensure that they provide adequate and exceptional service to Canadians and that they have the tools and information they need to do their jobs.

Sébastien Lemire :

I want to talk about the findings published in the Auditor General's report on performance evaluation. You say that the rating for the quality of the service provided is 45%, but that it is only 9% for the completeness or accuracy of the response. In the quality of service, you include authentication. That way, you place much more value on the ability to properly identify a client than on providing them with the right information. For me, communication and compliance with policies and procedures, just like authentication, are more general skills. I think those criteria deserve some evaluation.

We feel that the agency is managed like a private company, meaning that the faster agents respond and the more calls they take, the better their performance review and the faster they can move up the ranks at the agency. The most important criterion isn't providing the right answer to taxpayers, and I think all of that is a sign of a systemic problem. Is reviewing your performance evaluation grid part of the 100‑day service improvement plan? If so, can you provide it to the committee as soon as it's available?

Melanie Serjak :

I'll go back to the percentage of accuracy in the performance rating of agents, and I want to say that authentication is an extremely important component for the agency. Protecting information about individuals is critical; agents must ensure they are speaking to the right person and have the right information about them. That's why it's part of the performance. Accuracy is about 15.75% of the total performance rating. Part of that percentage is for the accuracy of the information provided, and part of it is to ensure that the measures taken by the agent to respond to the person's request are the right ones.

We can look at things from a slightly different angle. However, as we have said from the beginning, we take the Auditor General's findings seriously and will take them into account in our 100‑day plan and going forward. We're getting ready for tax season, which is just around the corner.

Sébastien Lemire :

I would like to raise a point about artificial intelligence. We know that your AI-powered search engine gave, on average, two right answers out of six to general questions. That's still twice as many as the employees, but ChatGPT gave five right answers out of six. I haven't seen any measure to fix the search engine. Is that part of the 100‑day service improvement plan?

Melanie Serjak :

Yes, absolutely, it's part of our 100‑day plan. I would like to clarify that the generative AI-powered chatbot project, which is on the Government of Canada website, was not subject to the Auditor General of Canada's study because it is a pilot project. Like any responsible organization, we didn't want to scale up an AI tool that we were testing. When Canadians use it right now, they know it's a beta version because it says so. We've been testing the tool for about seven months and getting feedback from Canadians, who click on a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon to indicate whether it works well or not.

During the Auditor General's study, we explained that the content recognized by the AI-powered search engine was very limited. As a result, it was not able to provide satisfactory answers to the questions posed during the study. However, starting next month, we'll be expanding the range of topics on which it can provide answers. That will include business-related topics, for example.

(1135) Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you. [ English ] We are beginning our second round. Ms. Kusie, you'll start it with five minutes, please.

Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC) :

I want to make it very clear to the team that's here today that both Minister Champagne and Secretary of State Long have been inundated with questions in the House of Commons on the Auditor General's report. It's no surprise, with complaints increasing by 145% in the last three years, with only 54% accuracy in responses and 17% when it's specific to tax questions, and with the service standard being met only 18% of the time. There's no doubt they should be held accountable and responsible for this, but what we're now hearing from them is that things are great.

Everything is going fantastically well, and they are meeting the service standards and beyond as a result of this 100-day plan. The real question, then, is this: When did the work behind the 100-day plan begin? Was it before or after you received the Auditor General's recommendations?

Bob Hamilton :

The work on this really began as we watched the results deteriorating. We actually did a consultation with Canadians in the fall to talk about service, and we were hearing feedback. We knew, obviously, that the results were not what we wanted, so we started the work on how we could fix this, and we came up with the 100-day plan. I want to be careful. It is working well. I think we're really pleased with its success, and it's driven an energy within the agency for change innovation—not just adding contact centre agents, but change innovation, so that's good.

However, this challenge is longer than a 100-day challenge, so we have to also be thinking about what we can do now that's going to help us in day 101 and down the road. That's a really important preoccupation with us. We're very pleased about what's happening now. The work had started earlier, but I think the 100-day plan was kind of a catalyst for pushing—

Stephanie Kusie :

Thank you, Commissioner, but this is a government that has been in charge for 10 years. The fact that complaints alone have gone up by 145% in the last three years tells me that this change was long overdue. One hundred days isn't even a third of a year. Over 10 years, 100 days is nothing. The fact that this is just being addressed now by this government through their direction to you is shameful, for the reasons that my previous colleague indicated, given the significant impact it has had on seniors, on families, on small businesses.

This government has been in power for 10 years, and to me the fact that we just started this in the fall is absolutely pitiful. Auditor General, thank you so much for your report and your continuing work for Canadians. You noted that the service centre contract was originally signed with a minimum work guarantee of $50 million over 10 years, but has now almost quadrupled to $190 million and will rise to $214 million over the next two years. Did the CRA and Shared Services Canada have the data to back up why this contract increased so much? If so, did the increases demonstrate value for money for Canadians?

Karen Hogan :

We put some elements into our report about why the value of the contract has increased. There were about 18 amendments once the contract was signed. I think all of us have to put ourselves back there for a second. In 2015, I'm not sure everyone could predict the pandemic and the impact that it would have on surging call volumes. I think some of that increase is explained by that, and then there was the need to beef up and have more accessibility, more agents on the line.

That said, many amendments occurred before the contract even started, and there was difficulty for us to assess the value for money because there was little scrutiny on some of the invoices. That's why we put in some information about the contract, but I felt there were enough red flags to start an audit on the management of this contract, with the goal of tabling it in Parliament in 2026 to hopefully help influence and amend, if needed, the new contract so that it can be better managed going forward.

(1140) Stephanie Kusie :

Thank you very much.

The Chair :

Thank you. As a small point of clarification, Mr. Hamilton, you said you consulted with Canadians in the fall. Was that correct? Was that the fall of last year? Can you just be precise in your answer? I wasn't sure if you meant the spring, but I thought I would seek that clarification in case it came up.

Bob Hamilton :

Mr. Chair, I believe I am correct on that, but we have someone online who can absolutely verify it, and that's Max Guénette.

The Chair :

Yes. Would that be this fall or last fall, or was it in fact the spring?

Maxime Guénette (Assistant Commissioner, Service, Innovation and Integration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency) :

It was the fall of 2024, Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you. That lines up exactly with what Commissioner Hamilton said, so thank you. Next, we have Ms. Tesser Derksen for five minutes, please.

Kristina Tesser Derksen (Milton East—Halton Hills South, Lib.) :

Thanks so much, Mr. Chair, and thanks, everyone. I am going to be moving a motion. I believe I have provided everyone with a copy, and I apologize for not speaking to all of you in advance. Is it okay if I launch into that, Mr. Chair? Thanks. As a quick preface, I'm moving this motion in the spirit of transparency, accountability and this committee's non-partisan role as guardians of taxpayer dollars, as well as in the never-ending pursuit of improving service to Canadians and ensuring they're receiving value for their tax dollars. I do acknowledge, Mr.

Hamilton, that there have been some great improvements very recently in accordance with the government's 100-day plan. That is very commendable, but it's our job at this committee to be somewhat retrospective, and it's incumbent upon us to scrutinize and review missteps that were made in the past in order to avoid making them in the future and to keep improving the critical services that Canadians rely on. It's in that spirit that I move the following motion, which I will now read:

Given that the Minister of Finance and National Revenue and the Secretary of State for the Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions wrote to the Standing Committee on Finance on September 2 to offer to make themselves available to appear at the committee at the earliest possible opportunity to speak about the CRA's 100-Day Plan to address service delays and access challenges;

That, as part of its study of the Auditor General's report on CRA Contact Centres, the committee invite the Minister of Finance and National Revenue and the Secretary of State for the CRA and Financial Institutions to appear before the committee to provide an update on the progress made to date on the CRA's 100-Day Plan.

I hope I can count on the support of my committee colleagues. I'm happy to answer any questions.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. I've not stopped the clock. We will turn to debate on this matter. I hope that we resolve it quickly. As a point of clarification, the committee that Ms. Tesser Derksen is referring to in the first paragraph is the finance committee. The committee she's referring to in the second paragraph is, I presume, the public accounts committee, so I don't think we need an amendment for that. We will just carry forward. Ms. Tesser Derksen, do I have that correct? Yes, I see that I do. Is there any debate on this? Before you begin a big debate, I will say that I am going to finish the four rounds here.

If we get this done quickly, we'll be done by one o'clock. If this goes on for a while, we'll be here after one o'clock, and we're still doing the 15 minutes afterwards, so conduct yourselves accordingly. Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

[ Translation ]

Sébastien Lemire :

I would just like to mention that I welcome the government's transparency initiative. I think a similar approach could have been taken as early as 2017, when the Auditor General of Canada at the time sounded the alarm about the same problem. Being able to ask questions about the plan is interesting and appealing to me. The Bloc Québécois will support the motion.

The Chair :

That's great. Thank you. [ English ] Are there any other points on this? Should I just call the vote?

Stephanie Kusie :

Yes.

The Chair :

We'll call the vote, please. (Motion agreed to: yeas 8; nays 0)

The Chair: That's passed unanimously. I'll now go back to Ms. Tesser Derksen. You have three and a half minutes remaining in your time to question the witnesses.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you very much. I want to start by saying that I've had some really great experiences with the CRA, both personally and through my business. The agents have been very polite, and it seems like they're genuinely trying to do their best when I call. I have also had situations in which, for example, two different calls about the same issue will elicit two different answers. There's definitely some improvement to be made. I want to touch first on the scope of knowledge that agents are required to have in order to effectively serve the calls they take.

I'm presuming there's a spectrum of complexity that comes through on the calls, from very simple issues to very complex ones. I'll direct this question to Ms. Hogan first. In your audit, did you apply a rubric for classification of the complexity of calls? I know that you've broken them into calls of a general nature and then account-specific or individual-specific calls, but within those baskets, have you applied some kind of scale of complexity in the questions that agents were having to deal with?

(1145) Karen Hogan :

I want to make sure that I understand the question. Are you asking about the calls that we placed ourselves or the calls that we listened to? I'm asking because there were two samples that we looked at.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

If you're able to comment on both, that would be great. I'd appreciate it.

Karen Hogan :

I will put the option out there: Maybe I'll need Mathieu to help me out, but I will do my best. In the calls that we made, we did divide them, as you say, among the three buckets of individual or personal taxes, business taxes and then benefits. I think it's important to say to all parliamentarians and Canadians that while many have been talking about the sample size, you should have confidence that when we pick a sample, we approach it with a lot of rigour.

We speak with statistical specialists and experts, and we ensure that when we look at a sample, it's sufficient to allow us to form an opinion with confidence. Otherwise, we wouldn't put it in our report and talk to you about it. The calls that we did covered all hours of operations. We called every day of the week so that we could spread it out. We spoke to 158 different agents. We placed 167 calls, but we asked over 1,000 questions of these agents across these calls, and that's how we based our strategy. Calls ranged from very simple calls, like an easy deadline question, to more complex questions.

We wanted to cover the spectrum of what an agent could possibly be asked. That's why it's concerning, because 17% accuracy when it comes to personal income taxes is far from a number that would be acceptable. In the calls that we sampled, we actually sampled recorded calls, because we wanted to look at individual, unique questions in which you identified yourself and it was just about you. We did that by way of a representative sample, so we knew the population.

Interestingly enough, that sample is almost exactly the same size as the number of calls that we placed, again supporting the rigour behind the 167 calls. There, we could only listen to what was going on in the conversation, and they're not triaged based on the complexity of the call. What we found was that in a call, there could be five or six questions answered, and some answers were accurate and some were not. That was a concern we had with the evaluations: They missed some of the gaps when they provided feedback. I hope that helps you with rigour.

The Chair :

Thank you. I'm afraid that is the time, but I'm sure we will come back to you. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Hamilton, I will ask you a question from Claude Flamand, the president of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue local of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. I would like to take this opportunity to commend him for his commitment to quality services for the public. He mentions that the number of employees at the Canada Revenue Agency's call centres has decreased by more than 2,000 people. As a result, the service standard is no longer met. However, in 2022-23, the CRA had over 7,000 employees, and it met the service standard.

Since then, Canada has experienced a demographic boom, a major increase in its population. Logically, that requires more services. Why are we cutting staff when we need more services? Two years later, we find ourselves in a crisis situation.

Bob Hamilton :

As I mentioned, it is true that it is always possible to answer more calls with more people, but there are other ways. Right now, we want to ensure responsible financial management, and we need to take steps to manage our workforce. The budget is not unlimited, so we have to operate within certain limits and act as efficiently as possible. Of course, we have tried to offset these measures, including through an increased use of technology. We've tried many things, some of which have worked and some of which haven't. We are still adjusting the 100‑day service improvement plan to ensure that we provide an acceptable level of service.

(1150) Sébastien Lemire :

I get the feeling that the plan is adjusted when there is a crisis. If we look at the situation over a 10‑year period, we see that, in 2015, the CRA had 40,059 employees, while in 2024, that number rose to 59,155, an increase of 47.7%. How do you explain that such a significant increase in staff hasn't necessarily had an impact on the quality of services provided to the public, especially if artificial intelligence and all the other factors you just mentioned should have led to better services? Where did those additional resources go?

Bob Hamilton :

It's important to recognize the unique circumstances of the various periods. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, a given number of agents had to respond to a given number of requests. During the pandemic, there was a lot more activity and calls, and therefore a lot more resources at the agency, which was then facing a huge challenge in answering calls and providing services to Canadians. After the pandemic, during a period of fiscal restraint, we had to adjust to ensure that we had the people or technologies needed to meet the needs. It was not a stable period where nothing changed.

It's important to recognize that each year, each period represents a different challenge for the agency. We are now trying to adjust our efforts based on the specifics of a given period. Technologies are very effective now. The results they produce show that it is very useful to use them to further help employees serve Canadians.

The Chair :

Thank you. Next we have Mr. Kuruc. [ English ] You have five minutes, please.

Ned Kuruc (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, CPC) :

Hello, and thank you all for being here today. One thing that's certain is that Canadians are expected to provide their tax returns on time, with accurate information. In Ms. Hogan's report, we see that the CRA hasn't met the same expectations it puts on Canadian people. That is very clear. I want to touch on the culture of the employees. The Auditor General mentioned that there's been “greater importance [placed] on how closely they adhered to their

schedule for their shift and breaks than on the accuracy and completeness of information they provided to callers.” Mr. Hamilton, you said earlier that there are some solutions, and one of them would be to hire more agents. I think your goal would be 1:700, but currently it's one agent for every 800 Canadians. Can you comment on that?

Bob Hamilton :

I'm not sure I fully understood the question, but I can deal with the first part of it. One in 700 and one in 800—

Ned Kuruc :

I question that the importance isn't on quality. The importance is on time-stamps: when you show up for work, when you go on break, and things like that. What's being done to actually focus...because in the private sector that would never work. You could never be a profitable company if your goal was to figure out when people came into work and when they went out for lunch. If your goal was focused on quality and service, then you'd have a very good business. Clearly that's not the case here. Can you comment on that? What happened there?

(1155) Bob Hamilton :

I understand that. I don't see them as exclusive of each other. I think that if I'm running a private sector corporation or a big organization like the CRA, I want to make sure that the people are there doing their job when they're supposed to be doing it. I think that's a part of it. I don't—

Ned Kuruc :

You're saying that quality isn't—

Bob Hamilton :

No, no. Let me finish—

Ned Kuruc :

You're saying that they're doing their job, but.... Again, should the focus be placed on when they show up for work and when they go on breaks, or on servicing Canadians?

Bob Hamilton :

I think you have to consider both. I guess that's my point. I started with saying that I want to make sure they're in position and doing their job when they're supposed to, but we also have to be concerned with quality. We have a

part in our evaluation—one can debate whether it should have more weight or less weight—that says, “What's the quality of the experience? What's the accuracy of what the agent gives?” I wouldn't say that you could go all one way or the other: You can't be concerned only with whether they're there, and, when they're there, you can't be concerned only with whether they give a good answer. You have to be concerned with both, and I think the Auditor General has raised a legitimate question about whether we should have some different weighting in that respect.

Ned Kuruc :

That's fair enough. I would politely disagree, because you weighted completely on one side of the spectrum and went away from quality completely. I say that because, based on the AG's report, agents could provide accurate information only 17% of the time. Hopefully, there will be a balance in the future. You said earlier that hiring more agents would be the key, but let's get back to the training. If agents are not being trained properly, hiring more agents is not going to solve this issue. There was monthly training. If there was any type of monthly training before September 2, why were you only accurate 17% of the time before September 2?

Bob Hamilton :

I think there are a couple of things, and maybe I'll ask Melanie to deal with the training issue, which I think she talked about before. I did not say that hiring more people is the key. I think having more people helps, but I do believe that while we are going to have more people at the agency, hopefully, we need better processes and we need better use of technology. It's all of that.

We also need to put things in place to maybe reduce the number of calls so that people don't need to call us so often, either because we don't have problems upstream or because we have some options for them to go to a website or whatever. It's a multipart strategy. That's one point. On the training, we actually have a very extensive training program, and I'll ask Melanie to provide a few details. We have a lot of agents. That doesn't mean that everybody is perfect because of the training they have, but we do have extensive training. We don't just throw these people on the phone without any training.

Ned Kuruc :

The track record is that 17% of the time they're accurate, based on the AG's report, so have you looked at completely retooling the training? I don't think it's working, based on performance before September 2. We've heard all these good numbers coming out after September 2, but this report is from 2017 to September 2. There are many years there of mismanagement.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Kuruc. That's your time. I will allow Mr. Hamilton to reply, please.

Bob Hamilton :

I think we actually beefed up our training considerably after the 2017 audit, so there have been a lot of real improvements. Again, I want to focus on the 80% of calls that are account-specific. There, we have much better accuracy than 17%. It's really important for people to understand that. We are doing an evaluation of the training to see if there are things that we can improve. We feel comfortable that we're actually providing good training, but it can always be reviewed, and circumstances change. The tax system gets more and more complex. People have more complex financial situations. Yes, we are open to looking at any gaps in the training that we have, and some of that will be—

The Chair :

Thank you very much. Up next, we have Mr. Housefather joining us online. You have the floor for five minutes, please.

Anthony Housefather (Mount Royal, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Hamilton and everyone, thank you so much for being there. Thank you, everyone, for the work at the Auditor General's office and at the CRA. Commissioner Hamilton, you've been in this job for nine years now. Is that correct?

Bob Hamilton :

Yes.

Anthony Housefather :

Commissioner Hamilton, am I right that you and your management team at the CRA are the ones responsible for the day-to-day operations of the agency, and that it's not politicians?

Bob Hamilton :

Yes, that's right.

(1200) Anthony Housefather :

You would say at this point that you know the CRA very well. Is that correct?

Bob Hamilton :

Yes.

Anthony Housefather :

The Auditor General issued a report that I can only construe as being a very damning report of the CRA. Do you concur with the results? Is there anything in this report that surprises you and that you want to contest?

Bob Hamilton :

No. We agree with the recommendations in the report.

Anthony Housefather :

I am not asking about the recommendations; I'm asking about the findings. Do you concur with the findings in the report, which is a very damning report of an agency that you run? Do you believe that all of this is correct? I mean the findings, not the results, and not how you're responding to them.

Bob Hamilton :

Yes. I don't doubt that the findings are correct. I guess the one thing I would say.... You asked whether anything surprised me. I think the accuracy results in that survey that was done.... I think we collectively and I found them surprising. That's why we're paying attention to that. Again, as I said, 20% of our calls are general and 80% are specific, but nevertheless, we have to do better on that. That's something that I would say surprised me, and we're paying careful attention to it.

The other problems, on access and whether people can get a hold of an agent, and some of our work to try to make that process work better.... We knew elements of that, and I don't disagree with the methodology that the AG put forward.

Anthony Housefather :

You're saying that you were surprised by the low accuracy rate. I would point out again that it's not on the individual-specific calls related to people's accounts, although there were inaccuracies in those, but the much higher rate was related to general questions. Have you done previous tracking over the past nine years on this issue? The Auditor General delivered a report in 2017. What was your follow-up to that report? Why would you be surprised at this point, given the previous 2017 report and this report? Do you think this is new? For example, do you think the numbers would have been different had she done this report a year ago or two years ago?

Bob Hamilton :

I can't really comment on that. I don't know if it would have been different. You asked about what kinds of things we've done since the 2017 report. I think it's considerable on all of these fronts. One, we had a new contact centre platform, which was much better than our old one and which allowed us to record calls. We couldn't do that before the 2017 period. Once we could record them, we actually got a much better read on the accuracy of the calls, because our previous method was to have somebody sit beside the agent and evaluate the call, and sometimes you can get a bit of a biased performance.

This way, we could record it. We could look at it. We could give feedback. I think that was a big step forward for us—

Anthony Housefather :

Agreed. Of course, it's shocking that it was 2017, that it took that long to get a recording of a call. That could have been done in the 1990s, but I do agree. Let me ask a question related to Charlie the chatbot. I heard your colleague state that this was a beta version, that people shouldn't have necessarily expected it to be accurate, but in my experience, you don't put out a version like this in an agency where people require correct responses to deal with their own personal taxes when you can get a better response from an AI online. Why would you have put this out into the field?

This sounds much more like an alpha version than a beta version. Why would you have put it out if you knew it was this inaccurate?

Melanie Serjak :

On the beta version of the GenAI chatbot that's currently on Canada.ca, we make it clear to Canadians that it covers three topics. It covers individual tax information, benefits and charities. If you ask it a question outside of the realm of those three topics, we make it clear that it's perhaps not the tool you wish to use. What's changing now, as I explained earlier, is that next month, based on the findings we've learned over the past seven months in running this beta version, we are going to be expanding the number of topics that are available to Canadians.

We do compare and benchmark against the industry standard—ChatGPT or what have you—so we are very well aligned with the technology, which is what Canadians should expect of us. We're quite excited about what's coming next month.

(1205) The Chair :

Thank you. Mr. Housefather, do you have a follow-up?

Anthony Housefather :

I have one last question for the Auditor General. Did you, Ms. Hogan, measure the chat feature based on those three elements that were just mentioned, or did you get only a global figure related to any question you might have asked it?

Karen Hogan :

We were aware of what had been put into the chatbot. We did ask questions in the three areas we audited: personal taxes, benefits and business taxes. It was accurate on child care—that would have been a benefit that you could have received—but then inaccurate in other areas. Maybe Mathieu can add to that.

The Chair :

Mr. Housefather, your time is up. I'm sure we'll come back to you. Mr. Lequain, you have the floor, please, to answer this.

Mathieu Lequain (Principal, Office of the Auditor General) :

It was accurate for the benefits line of investigation, but not for individual tax or corporate tax.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. I'm sure we'll pick this up again. We are beginning our third round. Mr. Stevenson, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

William Stevenson (Yellowhead, CPC) :

Thank you. As a CPA in public practice, I'm willing to guess that I've probably spent more time on the phone with Revenue Canada than anybody else now here in the room. I found a lot of frustrations. Several of my colleagues have already asked most of the questions I had, but I have a few others in regard to quality. Can you tell me how many of your callers from your call centres actually work at home?

Bob Hamilton :

I would have to see if we have a specific number on that. Our policy right now is that people have to spend three days in the office. There are some exceptions where we can't house them. Unless Melanie has a specific number, we may have to get back to you on that, but that's our policy.

William Stevenson :

That's fine. You can get back to us on that. Part of my reason for asking that goes to quality. I've had several calls where there are kids screaming in the background or dogs barking or whatever. When you have your calls, some of those things would distract you from the quality of the answer. I wonder about that. You talked about having a bunch of training. I'm finding a bit of conflict in that.

Paragraph 41 of the Auditor General's report states, “In 2024-25, the agency reported over 130,000 hours of coaching”, but it ended up working out to “under 30 minutes per agent annually.” That's not what you said before. I'll go to you, Ms. Serjak. How do you reconcile what the Auditor General has said about that in her report with what you're saying today?

Melanie Serjak :

I'm happy to take that question. Thank you very much. The information that was used in the Auditor General's report was sourced from one of our systems. That does not capture the entirety of the training that is offered to agents. Unfortunately, it does not give a comprehensive view.

William Stevenson :

Are you talking about CRA as a whole and saying that the audit is only on the call centres? Is that what you're trying to say is the differentiation?

Melanie Serjak :

No. It's just that the system that.... We can probably get you some more information after the fact to make sure that this is very precise, but there is a system that is used by agents, who enter the time during which they do training, and that system is not necessarily a comprehensive view of the training that is offered to the call centre agents.

William Stevenson :

I looked at something earlier. We were talking about the quality of the calls, and my other colleagues have mentioned the timing and the focus on how much time they're in and out. When you call, quite often you'll be on a call with somebody and then it will be cut off. It seems to me that almost always the reason you're cut off is that they can't find the answer. A lot of the people you're calling don't have the education, so they'll say, “Hold on and let me go check my resources.” Then you're lost. Then you're starting over. There's also another problem that I'd like to know about.

Whose decision would it be that when you call CRA—I can't give you specific times, but I know there are certain times of the year and certain times of the day—it says, “We're busy; call back later” versus putting you on hold? I'm thinking that the hang-ups and those deflected calls are not actually in any of the stats that talk about how long somebody is on hold, but I don't know. Whose decision would it be to have that kind of system and to hang up on the caller before they even get through to either the automated system or an actual agent?

(1210) Melanie Serjak :

Thank you for the question. Maybe I'll talk first about the call deflection you mentioned, because I'm not quite sure about the call hang-ups, but I'll get to that as well. We made a commitment to ensure that Canadians did not have to endure long wait times on the phone—

William Stevenson :

So they just get hung up on...?

Melanie Serjak :

—because they were experiencing high wait times. What we've done and implemented is ensuring that when the call volumes get to a point that exceed the capacity of our agents on the phone, we don't want Canadians to wait more than 30 minutes, so after 30 minutes they are deflected to use our automated self-serve options on the telephone. There is a menu of options whereby Canadians can self-serve. Many of the calls that our agents answer on a yearly basis are for topics and services that Canadians can actually avail themselves of online, whether it's ordering forms or ordering proof of—

William Stevenson :

If you have an 80-year-old or a 90-year-old—and I had several of them—who doesn't own a computer, and there are a lot of people who are much younger who don't have the computer skills to manage that, how are they supposed to deal with this if they can't get through on the call?

The Chair :

That's your time. I'll allow an answer, please, and then I'll recognize our next member. Please go ahead.

Melanie Serjak :

I just want to say that we recognize it's not optimal for everyone who calls us, depending on the call volumes of that day or of that week. That, we recognize. What we are doing as part of our 100-day plan is working to improve that particular piece of the phone call so that when they are deflected, so to speak, to use our automated phone system—I'm not talking about being online, for someone who is not online-savvy—we're trying to optimize that for the Canadian who is waiting on the phone. That is part of our 100-day plan. They may not even need to reach an agent, at the end of the day, to do exactly what it is they're calling about.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. Next is Mr. Osborne for five minutes, please.

Tom Osborne (Cape Spear, Lib.) :

Thank you. This is a question for Mr. Hamilton. The report has identified that “limited time was dedicated to improving accuracy and completeness”. I know you have answered this to a certain degree, but I'm looking for a more fulsome answer. What has the agency done to determine the levels of time and resources that are required to implement its quality control and agent improvement processes?

Bob Hamilton :

Thank you for that question. I think Melanie was going to respond a bit to that in the previous round, so I'll let her elaborate, but I would just say that, at the high level, we recognize that we have to make sure there's adequate space in the evaluation for the quality. As I said, it has to be a combination, and this would be for any organization—making sure that people are there doing their job when they're supposed to be, but also that they're giving accurate information and they're giving high-quality service.

We are undertaking to review that process, to do an evaluation, and to see if there's something better that we can do, but we're going to have to do both. This relates to other questions that have been asked. One of the things we've observed since the start of the pandemic is that the call handle times have increased significantly. Before the pandemic, our average call was about nine minutes. During the pandemic and beyond, it's over 15 minutes, so you have a 50% increase in the time. We have to pay attention to what's taking the time on those calls.

Frankly, one of the things we've seen—again, since the pandemic with the increase of fraud—is that there has to be a lot of effort put into making sure that you're talking to the person who they say they are, and that identification process can occupy more space. All of the work that Melanie and her team do is to try to understand these forces and then try to adapt our procedures, but I'll let her speak to you briefly about the training.

(1215) Melanie Serjak :

Absolutely. We have over 100 quality evaluators who independently review the quality of the phone calls that our agents provide to Canadians. It is something that we take really seriously. I know that I've mentioned this figure earlier, but in the 130,000 phone calls that we review per year, the accuracy is over 90%. I just want to reassure Canadians that we are providing accurate and correct information the vast majority of the time, but it doesn't take away from the fact that there's room for improvement.

That quality evaluation program, which feeds into our agent scorecards to really inform how the agent's performance is on the phone, is a robust one, but it's something that we are also looking at in the context of the 100-day plan and going forward as we prepare for tax-filing season.

Tom Osborne :

How does the 17% sit with you? Is that, in the agency's perspective, an accurate number? If it is, it's very concerning. Can you talk about the 17% accuracy number?

Bob Hamilton :

We are concerned. I don't think that's a good result. Again, I'd put it in a box and say.... I take the Auditor General's point. It's a good sample, but it relates to a smaller percentage of our calls, and we probably need to do a better job of making sure we track that for that general information. Again, just to emphasize, if you're calling about yourself, I think we would all agree that we do a good job on accuracy of the call. Can we do better? Yes. Are we trying to do better? Yes. Part of that can be the evaluation of the accuracy and whether we need to give it a bit of extra oomph. I think I said it earlier. I find that 17% troubling, and we have to get on top of fixing that.

Tom Osborne :

Regarding the level of inaccurate answers provided to callers, can you talk about where this stems from? Is it a result of a lack of knowledge? Is there more training required for the agents? Is it the skill level of the agents you have? Is it difficulty that they have in communicating the information to callers? Is it the fact that they're at the work site three days a week and at home two days? Can you talk about the factors that play into the reason for the inaccurate information?

Bob Hamilton :

I will start, and then Melanie could jump in. I think that's the process we're involved in right now. The Auditor General was kind enough to share the questions and responses. We can take a look at those and see what kind of error was made. That's the process we're beginning on, to understand that. It could be something where maybe the answer wasn't complete, so there's just a piece missing. That's one type of problem we need to solve. It could also be that the agent just didn't know the answer to the question for some reason, and they gave the wrong date or the wrong eligibility criteria.

We have to examine those, much like we do on the bigger bulk of our calls, and ask how we can do better to make sure that agents have the answers or, if they don't have the answers, they can find them. We have people with different skill levels, and we have supervisors who can come in and help. That process has to work so that the person who has the knowledge about that issue can feed into the answer. That's what we're doing right now. I'm keen to dig into the results just to understand the very question you're raising about how that comes up.

You would think the general answers would generally be a bit simpler than your tax-specific ones, but that may or may not be true. The other

part is that people should understand that this is not an easy job, when you're on the phone trying to explain to someone what their tax situation is. It's a responsibility. It's one we need to do extremely well. However, you're dealing with a very complicated Income Tax Act that gets more complicated all the time. People have unique circumstances. Having sat in on many of those calls over the years, my hat goes off to people. I know they're trying their best. However, I think we can't underscore enough the fact that those are difficult jobs, and frankly, that's why people who have contact centre experience in the agency are typically very valued within the agency in other capacities.

The Chair :

Thank you.

(1220) Bob Hamilton :

The bottom line is that we're looking to examine just the question you raised.

The Chair :

That is time, and it's well over. I appreciate the answers, as does the committee. [ Translation ] Once again, I give the floor to Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes.

Sébastien Lemire :

Ms. Serjak, I had a discussion with Yves Dumulon, head of citizen services back home. He is directly impacted by the impossibility of reaching someone by phone at the Canada Revenue Agency. Yves Dumulon worked for about 10 years at Service Canada. His position was eliminated by the Harper government, might I remind you. At that point, I think you lost the Mario Lemieux of officials, but that's my personal opinion. That said, he reminded me that Service Canada was created to be the gateway to the government.

Still today, you have to talk to one person for the old age security pension, another person for the dental care plan, yet another for taxes and someone else for whatever other problem. Ultimately, the question is this: What is the point of Service Canada now? Why, when you call the department, is there no one who can help Canadians with the services they need? That was the basic vision of Service Canada. Why don't you have a better solution, or shared services, within the Canada Revenue Agency?

Melanie Serjak :

We have a very good partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada to reach the most vulnerable populations in the country. Through the partnership, we can target these populations effectively. Our partnership with Shared Services Canada extends to almost 6,000 organizations across the country to really raise awareness about how to file your return and how to contact us. We are working with both departments to provide even more appropriate and comprehensive service. I hope that answers the question.

Sébastien Lemire :

I held public consultations on the reality of seniors in 10 different places in my riding. We did a report on the subject, and one thing that emerged loud and clear was the difficulty or inability of seniors to access a service. They feel as though they are being sent from one place to another without being able to get service. The Auditor General's report talks a lot about people aged 90 and over who have trouble with authentification. Why wouldn't there be a specific line dedicated to seniors within your services or those of Service Canada so that these people can confirm their identity once and get the specific information they need without being stuck in bureaucratic or IT mazes?

Melanie Serjak :

I can tell you about three things we do to serve seniors. I will come back to your question about a dedicated line for seniors at the end. First, I already mentioned the 6,000 organizations across Canada that we work with, in partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada. About 1,000 of these organizations target seniors to increase their awareness of how to contact the Canada Revenue Agency and file their tax returns. Second, we have a very robust program called the community volunteer income tax program.

This program also targets the most vulnerable populations, including seniors, providing them with a free service that helps them file their tax returns. Last year, over a million tax returns were filed through the service. Third, every year, we invite more vulnerable people to do their tax returns more automatically, including by answering questions over the phone. Almost half of the invitations we sent out to Canadians went to seniors. People in a particular financial situation had the opportunity to do it in a very simple way, over the phone, in about 10 minutes. I just wanted to emphasize that.

As for a dedicated line, everything is currently on the table. We are looking at the services we can provide to Canadians while ensuring a return on investment and improving our services. However, I want to point out that fraud is a big part of our ecosystem. A dedicated line that targets a vulnerable population could also cause problems with fraud. That's why we're saying that everything is on the table, but we need more in-depth analyses.

(1225) Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you so much.

The Chair :

Thank you. Mr. Deltell, you have the floor for five minutes.

Gérard Deltell :

Mr. Hamilton, earlier I said that this Auditor General's report was the most scathing I've ever seen for a department that serves taxpayers. In her report, Ms. Hogan said, “I am concerned that in spite of a new telephony system and other improvements, Canadians are still waiting too long to get answers to their tax questions.” What do you have to say to Ms. Hogan, but especially to Canadians who are saying that no matter what you do, they're still going to have trouble?

Bob Hamilton :

I thought that was a question for someone else. Could you repeat it?

Gérard Deltell :

I'm sure you've read Ms. Hogan's report. She said, “I am concerned that in spite of a new telephony system and other improvements, Canadians are still waiting too long to get answers to their tax questions.” How are you going to do to respond to Ms. Hogan, but especially to Canadians who are saying that no matter what you do, they're still going to have problems?

Bob Hamilton :

Yes, the wait time is too long for Canadians. There have been recent improvements, but there was certainly a problem. These are three different worlds. Prior to the pandemic, we were committed to responding to calls within two minutes. However, the reason we were able to do that was that we didn't take calls that we didn't think we could answer in two minutes.

Gérard Deltell :

Mr. Hamilton, my question is about the future. Ms. Hogan says that, even if you make changes, people will still have to wait. Don't tell me about what happened during the pandemic. Tell me about what's going to happen in the next few years. Will Canadians finally have a phone line that works as it should, instead of waiting and waiting?

Bob Hamilton :

The reason I mentioned the prepandemic period is that different strategies were put in place to address that during the pandemic. If your question is about the future—

Gérard Deltell :

Yes, that's right.

Bob Hamilton :

I'm very pleased with the current results. We answer 70% of calls, and we do it within 30 minutes. However, as I said, it will be important to monitor the situation over the next tax filing season to see if we'll be able to achieve the same results. That is what we are currently focusing our efforts on, to ensure that we can operate at roughly the same level as now. However, to achieve this, our strategy cannot be limited to hiring more agents. Perhaps we will have more, but we are now in the process of making changes to what we do upstream from the calls.

For example, if we have a better website, better technologies and better tools for our agents, fewer people may need to call us. We think that will lead to better outcomes.

Gérard Deltell :

Canadians also want to know that when they're able to speak to an agent, they're given accurate information. Earlier, it was shown that this was not the case four times out of five. I think there's a reason for that. Ms. Hogan said that the agency placed more value on respecting work schedules and breaks than on the accuracy of information provided, and that this didn't encourage dedication to quality service. What's the corporate culture at the Canada Revenue Agency? Is it about reporting for work on time or is it about providing accurate information? Don't tell me it's about balancing the two, because Ms.

Hogan said it's not balanced. You place more value on respecting work schedules than accuracy of information. That's unacceptable, Mr. Hamilton.

Bob Hamilton :

I said it before, but I'll say it again: You have to balance the two. It's not one or the other. That said, we're open to doing a study on our evaluation process to see if we need to focus a little more on one thing than the other. It's important that part of the evaluation focus on employees respecting work schedules and how employees behave, but I'm aware that it takes a balance. We have to send the message to employees that it's important to answer calls, but also to provide an answer—

(1230) Gérard Deltell :

Those are the basics; that's the minimum that can be asked of them. These individuals want to work and serve Canadians, but they need to be properly informed so that they can, in turn, provide accurate information. With all due respect, what's happened in recent years is unacceptable. Why did you let things slide? Why did you need Ms. Hogan to table a report, which prompted the minister to wake up, in order to take action? For 10 years, ministers have been sleeping on the job, and you decided to act only because Ms. Hogan and we MPs did our job. We were inundated with calls, to put it mildly.

Regardless of party or region, we were receiving dozens of calls a week from people who were having problems with the Canada Revenue Agency, even though that's your job. Why did you wait for Ms. Hogan to table her report to do the right thing?

Bob Hamilton :

I assure you that we're improving the situation. I'm confident that we'll be able to provide better service in the future and that our agents will be able to both answer calls and provide accurate information. It's also important to look at agent behaviour as part of evaluations. Finally, we want taxpayers to have a good experience. It's important to me to say that, based on the survey we conducted about calls, taxpayers who speak to an agent generally have a positive experience.

The Chair :

That's great. Thank you. Mr. Hamilton, we have to move on to another question. [ English ] I'm sure this will get picked up again. I would like to keep us on track. There's enough there for another question. I'll turn to Ms. Yip for five minutes, please.

Jean Yip :

Mr. Hamilton, following Mr. Deltell's question, I'm also hearing from my constituents that they are still frustrated over the backlog. There is a senior whose OAS was stopped because he put three extra zeros when he was filing his income tax. He went online, provided a letter of explanation and called CRA, but he couldn't get through. His case has been ongoing for some time. How quickly is the timeline in your action plan being moved for these improvements?

Bob Hamilton :

There are two issues there. One is that the person called us and did not get the proper service on the call, from what you've said. However, there's another issue that's also quite important, and that is the backlog that may be taking place in OAS, I believe. Whatever the benefit is, or the tax measure, there's a backlog there because we aren't processing them as fast as we could. As I mentioned, one of our objectives during the 100 days, and certainly beyond, is to attack those root causes of why people have to call us.

In that case, if there wasn't a problem upstream with people not knowing where their application was or where their tax form was, they wouldn't have to call us. Those are things that we are really trying to address. You can't address them all overnight, because with population growth and with tax complexity, we're getting a lot more demands for this. If you take something like the disability tax credit, which became the tool to access the Canada disability benefit, it has increased our activity on the disability tax credit front.

More people are filing, and they can actually go back 10 years to refile their income taxes if they get accepted. All of those things are contributing to slower processing times, and we really want to get at that before the next filing season starts, because that will have a dual benefit. That person will be happier because things will be moving faster, and they won't have to call us. That will help us with our call centre performance. To me, those root causes are very important for us, but they're not easy to fix.

We have very good digital systems at the agency, where 95% of people file their tax returns electronically. We are a highly digital organization, but in some cases—and income tax adjustments can be one—they can file their returns digitally, but they file their readjustments manually. Once you kick into a manual process, everything takes longer. If we're working digitally, things can move quickly, but if it goes into a manual process, it takes us longer, and that can create backlogs.

It's not easy to fix, but those are some of the things that we're working on now, which will ultimately help us in the contact centres.

(1235) Jean Yip :

Ms. Hogan, according to exhibit 10, why was the wait time longer—the estimated time stated on the agency website—for small business at 73% compared to individual taxes at 53%?

Karen Hogan :

This was us trying to explain to you the experience that we had during our calls. We were trying to test the accuracy of the online system. The telephone system could give you a wait time, but then the website could also post a wait time, so you could pick when you wanted to call. We wanted to see what the accuracy of that was, and we often waited much longer than what was posted in either location.

Jean Yip :

Okay. It was wait times and not quality of information, then.

Karen Hogan :

Yes. This was about wait times. There was a new feature added with the telephone system, which didn't exist in 2017, so now you can give an indication to a caller of what the wait time is. Our concern was that it was a point in time and it never had real-time updates. You can't make a well-informed decision when you start off thinking it might be 10 minutes, but you're there much longer. You can't make a decision to choose self-serve, to hang up and try again later, or to wait.

Jean Yip :

I know there's a lot of frustration for small business about the wait times and so forth. Did you have any statistics on the quality of information or on the accuracy of information given to small business?

Karen Hogan :

In our test calls, we triaged it among three different buckets. When we had calls around businesses or benefits, the accuracy rate was a little over 54%, which, if you go to school, is just a passing grade or close to one. There's still a lot of opportunity for improvement, though. These are the kinds of questions where people are looking for advice in order to file their tax returns correctly. It's not a call about the status of their application or how they can deal with an error code that they're receiving. I'm happy that those are over 90% accurate, but when you're looking for advice, you should also be expecting that level of accuracy.

The Chair :

Thank you. I'm afraid that is the time again, Ms. Yip. We're burning through it. We're beginning our fourth and final round. Ms. Kusie, you have the floor for five minutes.

Stephanie Kusie :

Ms. Hogan, similar to the contracts Canadians saw with arrive scam and GC Strategies, you noted that invoiced levels of activity weren't verified. There was limited validation of invoices, and processes weren't followed to ensure that invoices accurately reflected that the actual work was done, once again. Why do you think this is so widespread across departments?

Karen Hogan :

I think the question goes much further than looking at just the contract for these contact centres. We've talked a lot about the delegated authority that public servants have and the importance of scrutinizing invoices to ensure that when they authorize the use of taxpayer money, it's accurate. I can't tell you exactly why it was happening in this situation. That's why I decided to launch another audit to look at the management of this contract so that we can look at some improvements. The time frame covered here goes back to 2018 and all the way up to today.

It will be important to see if there was a difference in how things were handled over a period of time. We'll hopefully be able to provide insights on that to Parliament in 2026.

Stephanie Kusie :

Considering that this is something you have found to be so widespread across the government, who do you think is ultimately responsible?

Karen Hogan :

Any time I'm asked this question.... The deputy head of any organization is ultimately responsible for having good controls within their organization—

Stephanie Kusie :

Is it not the minister?

Karen Hogan :

A deputy minister is accountable to a minister, but the deputy minister is responsible for the day-to-day things and ensuring that there are sufficient controls in an organization. Oftentimes, that responsibility is delegated down. Every individual within the public service who has a role to play in ensuring that taxpayer money is used properly has to take that seriously. Ultimately, it's the deputy minister who should answer why controls may not have worked as intended.

(1240) Stephanie Kusie :

Would you say this is something within the culture of this government, from the top down, starting with the Prime Minister and Clerk of the Privy Council? Is it something that has to change within the culture for departments to finally take this seriously and for rules to be enforced? You have made this same recommendation several times over several audits, yet nothing seems to be changing, based on your repeated findings. At this point, wouldn't it be safe to say this is something cultural within the government, stemming from the very top with the Prime Minister and the Clerk of the Privy Council?

It is consistent and it is persistent. What has to happen for this government to finally take this seriously, according to you?

Karen Hogan :

This is a question that I think plagues every auditor as we try to understand the “why” when policies and rules are very clear. Roles and responsibilities should be clarified between organizations. Why aren't the rules being followed? That's a question we try to answer in every single audit. In this case, there's a very unique contracting relationship, where a central agency is trying to get services for three entities. I don't think they properly clarified how all of those roles and responsibilities should be outlined, and that's why no one was really scrutinizing the invoices. That's what I hope to answer as we look at the next audit on this.

Stephanie Kusie :

I remember very clearly your comments in the spring regarding the GC Strategies audit, which seem applicable here today regarding this audit. You said you hadn't made any recommendations, because the government need only follow and implement the rules, yet six months later, here we are, having the same findings and the same conversation again. It's incredibly disappointing, not only for me, but for members of this committee and Canadians as well. Commissioner Hamilton, I want to read out a response my office received when we asked my constituents to outline their experience with your agency. It reads, “Terrible.

My accountant made an error that should have been easily corrected. Three times, when she tried to contact them, she was on hold for over two hours. Once, when she talked to someone at the CRA, they didn't understand what she was asking and kept putting her on hold to ask a supervisor, and then she finally came back and said it was the end of her shift and my accountant would have to call back another day.

It took 14 months to correct the error and for me to receive my owed $3,000.” What do you have to say to any Canadian who has the unfortunate pleasure of phoning and waiting on hold to speak with your agency, just to be told by the agent, “I don't know”?

Bob Hamilton :

Obviously, I don't like that response. To be honest, I receive some of them myself from people, and I don't like them. When we see them, we try to understand them and fix them. I can't comment on the specifics of that, but people shouldn't have to go through that. I don't know the particular circumstances, but part of what we're trying to do is make sure that we address those situations earlier. I would say—and it's not an excuse—that we receive over 30 million calls a year, so I can never guarantee there won't be a story like that. However, I see enough of them that they're part of the reason we have to do a lot better and fix them when they come to—

The Chair :

Thank you. That's perfect. I'm going to be a little tight on time here, unless you want to stay a little later.

Bob Hamilton :

No, I'm okay.

The Chair :

I'm going to try to get us through here shortly after one o'clock. Members, be advised that I'm going to cut questions that run over time, but I'll still allow witnesses to finish. Ms. Tesser Derksen, you have the floor for five minutes.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to get back to my first line of questioning, which was about the training. It's fairly evident that tax law has grown more voluminous and more complicated as the years have gone on. I took a year of tax law. It's very complicated. Compare that to the weeks of training your agents might get. The Income Tax Act is over 3,000 pages, and it's on paper like tissue paper. It's complicated and getting more complicated. That being said, what's your plan to set these agents up for success? Right now, they are not meeting the standard.

There's a lot of room for improvement and a lot of potential for success, but they're going to be looking to their supervisors, to their trainers and to you, ultimately, to set them up for success in the future as tax law and regulations become more complex.

(1245) Bob Hamilton :

The committee may not know, but I've been at the agency for nine years. I spent a good chunk of my career before that at the Department of Finance on the policy side, which is drafting legislation. I've certainly advocated for simplifying the tax system to make everybody's life easier. Having said that, it's gone in the other direction, and the challenge you raise is very real. It's not just income tax that our people deal with. They have other assorted taxes, like excise taxes, etc., and these are complex situations. What are we doing about it? Here's a place where technology can help us.

You'll always need a human in the equation, but can something like artificial intelligence sift through all that and give the essence to the agent so they can verify it? It can sift through that complex web and help our agent. Through AI, can we find ways to deal directly with the taxpayer and say, “I know you may not get these 10 pages of paragraphs and subparagraphs, but let me tell you what's really going on”, and then have the technology do that simplification for us? In the end, most taxpayers don't need to know every piece of the act.

They just need to know the core, because their situation might be simpler. There's a place where technology can help us. What we're doing, as well, is adapting our training program to make sure our agents are trained up to the maximum in terms of sophisticated tax questions that can come their way. In a sense, it is just getting more complex. I would add that when it comes to time on phone calls, we've seen a period of rapid immigration. People come from outside of the country, and sometimes they're not as familiar with the Canadian tax system as others. Those are more high-touch individuals.

They need a little more help from us, and it's our responsibility to give them that help. We're training our agents for all of that, and it's a never-ending quest. We're just going to have to keep doing better and find tools to help us give our agents a better chance and also give taxpayers a bit simpler explanation as to what's going on.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Thank you. Without wading too far into decisions that are outside your control, like policy decisions, have you looked at other jurisdictions to see what best practices they've implemented? I'm thinking particularly of the U.K. I know they have implemented a major tax reform. Are there best practices they have used that might be transferable or might provide a good template for us to look at, as far as training and improving services go?

Bob Hamilton :

Yes. In fact, I chair a group of my colleagues across the OECD countries—53 countries. As commissioners in different countries, we share experiences like this. We talk about our digital transformation. Although every jurisdiction is different, there are a lot of similarities in how we train our people and how we deal with the tools we have. That's a common issue. I would just add a footnote, a short one. One of the other things we talk about with other jurisdictions is how they've simplified the system.

If you look at some of the Scandinavian countries and other countries, they have what's called auto-file, where the tax administer prepopulates the return, sends it to the person and then the person agrees or disagrees. That can really simplify the tax-filing process. The government has just announced that in the budget we will be moving forward with an auto-file project for Canada, which should allow us to fill in tax forms for people. We give them the opportunity to correct it or not. That can make the whole process simpler, based on the information we have. We already have T4 information for people.

We have information on investment slips. Can we expand that information so that we can do a better job there? Those are the kinds of things we're always looking at to simplify life for taxpayers.

Kristina Tesser Derksen :

Great. Thank you very much. I have one question that I will ask real quickly about telephony. It's an unfortunate name for a system. I just want to mention that the report noted there were some features of telephony that were not implemented, particularly a “workforce management module”. Can you explain to us the rationale for not implementing that particular tool? What's your plan for managing workforce management in the future?

Bob Hamilton :

I'm going to ask Melanie to comment on the telephony part of it, but I am—

The Chair :

Mr. Hamilton, I'm going to stop you and hear from Ms. Serjak, if that's okay. We're over the time. Who is the best person to hear from? Obviously, it's you, but—

(1250) Bob Hamilton :

People could debate that. Sure, or we can get back to you with that answer.

The Chair :

There are a few more questions here from the members, but go ahead, Ms. Serjak, please.

Melanie Serjak :

Just like any other technology or solution, there is functionality that comes out of the box, so to speak, that may not necessarily suit the business requirements or the outcomes that we're looking for as a service organization. While that functionality was perhaps available, the reason why we did not implement it per se is very likely related to the fact that the return on investment or the way that it actually served the purpose didn't quite meet our needs.

What we are doing is accelerating our migration to the new telephony platform system with the new contract that was just delivered earlier this summer, to avail ourselves of that type of service and those types of functionalities when and where required. It is a cloud service, so we are going to be able to stay in line with industry standard and then pull on the functionalities when we need them and when they serve the business outcomes, workforce management being one of them. It's very exciting.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. [ Translation ] Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Hamilton, with thanks in advance, can you provide the committee with the actual expenditures incurred, broken down by type of cost, including the cost of consulting services salaries, consulting services and travel fees, the cost of software and IT infrastructure, the cost of internal services, additional Shared Services Canada costs and the cost of the goods and services tax for hosted contact centre solutions for each year since 2020? You renewed that contract in 2025.

Can you provide the committee with an estimate of the total costs and actual expenses incurred by type of cost, including the same information as my previous request? Now I have a quick question. You evaluate your agents according to certain criteria. To what extent are you and your team of deputy commissioners evaluated using the same criteria? Is your compensation or bonus related to your on-time performance or your ability to answer our questions in a timely manner? I know that this is your job and that you are responsible for it.

However, if an employee takes too long to respond, they will receive training or perhaps their position will be in jeopardy. Why don't you feel the same obligation to be accountable for the quality of services? The Auditor General pointed this out in her highly riveting report released on Tuesday, but this fiasco has been going on since 2017.

Bob Hamilton :

Can you clarify if that's a question for the deputy commissioners or for others?

Sébastien Lemire :

I'm asking you.

Bob Hamilton :

I think I'll go to Ms. Serjak. I would nonetheless like to point out that we have a robust system to ensure that all employees at all levels perform well. We set it up so as to give examples of what managers expect. I apply that system to the deputy commissioners who report to me, but there's a very similar system elsewhere in the organization. I think call centres benefit from this very specific system, because it's possible to measure results,

whereas elsewhere in the government, it can be a bit difficult to judge whether a note is good or well written, for example. However, it's possible to test an individual's performance in a call centre. Is the individual there? Do they answer a certain number of calls? We can also measure other qualities.

Sébastien Lemire :

Thank you very much, Mr. Hamilton. I will respect my speaking time if I don't want to be cut off. I'm teasing you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Lemire. [ English ] Up next is Mr. Kuruc, who has allowed me to take just the first few seconds. Mr. Hamilton, I'm going to approach the time recording from a different angle. The auditor highlights the focus on signing in, break times and things like that. Is that in part because you as management are having difficulty managing people who are working from home, and therefore heightened oversight has been put in place to ensure that people are in fact working from home?

Bob Hamilton :

Mr. Chair, I don't believe that would be the main motivation of that. I think the contact centres have typically run with a very precise timeline. We need people on the phones, and we need to know when they're not going to be there. They might be off taking a break. They might be off doing some training. It has the degree of precision that it's always had.

(1255) The Chair :

Okay.

Bob Hamilton :

Certain things become a bit more challenging in the remote environment, but unless Melanie disagrees, I don't think that's been a big factor.

The Chair :

Okay. I know that the committee has asked for some documents on working from home. Monsieur Lemire also asked for some documents. Perhaps you could endeavour to report those back to us. Normally, I like to get the witnesses to acknowledge the requests, but sometimes the members like to keep going. Would that be possible, do you think? Could you get back to us on some of those documents that Monsieur Lemire requested?

Bob Hamilton :

We can definitely get back to you. I don't see a problem with the request. We actually have our CFO here. If he doesn't have a problem, I don't have a problem.

The Chair :

Thank you. Before I go to Mr. Kuruc, I have one last question. Is there information that your agents cannot access when they work from home? One thing I've heard from my constituents is that they'll be calling your line looking for information, and your employees will say, “I can only go so far. I'm not at the office. I can't access some tax information, so you'll have to call back.” Is it correct that agents who work from home might not have access to certain sensitive information on tax returns, and could that be leading to some of the slow responses?

Bob Hamilton :

Do you want to go ahead, Melanie?

Melanie Serjak :

That's something we'd like to get back to the committee on. That requires a level of precision.

The Chair :

Super. Thank you. Mr. Kuruc, you have three and a half minutes, please.

Ned Kuruc :

Thank you. I think it would be an understatement to say that since I've gotten this report, I haven't been happy. One of the big reasons is that when Canadians can't navigate the CRA—or, as we now know, they were getting a lot of misinformation—it becomes very costly for them. They have to hire an accountant to navigate these waters, which comes at a very big expense. Currently, we're in a cost of living crisis, and most Canadians can't afford that. What's great about being an MP is that they can come to us. We can help them.

I know that, with their staff, every single member of Parliament in this room is more than willing and happy to do that, and we have been doing that. I'll give an example of what we have to go through. I have a single mother in my riding who has a non-verbal autistic son. She got a terrifying letter that she owes $16,000. She didn't know where to turn. She didn't have the money for an accountant. Thankfully, she walked into our office. Resubmitting all her paperwork and working with the CRA, we were able to come to the conclusion that she actually received $2,400.

Now, in my mind, accountability levels out any mismanagement. My question for you is this: Has the CRA issued any correction or apology to taxpayers affected by misinformation, and should taxpayers who relied on bad advice be reimbursed for interest and penalties caused by the CRA errors?

Bob Hamilton :

I will turn to my colleague Melanie to respond in detail. This question came up earlier as well. Obviously, I can't comment specifically on the example you raised, but with those cases, I hear them. MPs bring them to our attention, and we do try to solve those as fairly, equitably and quickly as possible. Melanie, I think the question was that if somebody takes an action—

Ned Kuruc :

I'm sorry, sir. The question is about accountability. Ever since I was fortunate enough to be elected by Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, I've come here to the public accounts committee and to the House, and there's no accountability with the past government and, we're finding, with this government. Do the taxpayers get their accountability for misinformation from your department? Where does that begin? Is it “sorry”? Is it an apology? Have the people who've done a bad job since 2017 to September been terminated? What's going on? Where's the accountability to taxpayers and Canadian citizens? It's a very clear question, sir.

Bob Hamilton :

Yes, it is. The ultimate accountability is with me, but I'll let Melanie answer the question with regard to the mechanisms we have in place if people receive the wrong information from us.

Melanie Serjak :

What you've quoted is a really unfortunate story—I just have to declare that—but without knowing the taxpayer in question, of course, I wouldn't be able to opine as to what would happen or what has happened since. When the CRA has determined that it has made an error at some point in the process, a few things can happen. The taxpayer does have recourse and will always have recourse through our appeals process, our objections process. That is always available to them.

(1300) Ned Kuruc :

That costs more money with accountants. Your appeals process—

The Chair :

Thank you. Mr. Kuruc, I'm going to end it there, because I am running over time. Do you have a last word, Ms. Serjak? I thought your answer was appropriate. Okay, thank you very much. I'll turn now to Mr. Housefather for the last five minutes, please. You have the floor.

Anthony Housefather :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to come back to Ms. Serjak. In my last round of questions, you talked about deflection. I believe you said that if you're on the line for 30 minutes, you could then be deflected to an automated system. There have been concerns, of course, that have been raised since then about seniors and others who cannot use automated systems very well. Ms. Serjak, why would people be required to wait 30 minutes only to be deflected to this system?

Why would you not, on the system, already know when somebody calls that there is a surplus of calls that the agents won't be able to triage within 30 minutes and immediately direct them to this automated system? How could you possibly have a system that makes them wait 30 minutes and then does that?

Melanie Serjak :

Currently, there is a wait time of only one to two minutes if you call our main phone lines today, and we're answering approximately 90% of our phone calls. When the volume does surpass the capacity that we have on the phones, we have what we call a national traffic team—it's the phone traffic—that manages the volume and the average wait time. If we know in advance that the average wait time for a Canadian will exceed 30 minutes, then we will deflect them to the automated system so that there is a better experience for them.

They may not reach an agent—they may not get to a human—on the other end of the line, but there is a chance that they may be able to self-serve through the phone menu. I don't know if that answers your question, but that is a change—

Anthony Housefather :

I just want a better understanding. I understand that, with this 100-day plan, phones are being answered more quickly today and fewer people are waiting, which is good; it's excellent. However, I want to understand.... I thought you said that when somebody is on the line for 30 minutes, they are then, at that point, automatically deflected to this system. It would be very different if it's what you now are saying, which is that as soon as you call, you are deflected. I think that makes sense, if you're told immediately when you call in, “Right now there is a high call volume.

Your wait time is more than 30 minutes. As such, we invite you to call back later, to leave us a phone number and we will call you back, or to go to this automated system.” However, I thought that what you said was that I would be waiting on hold for 30 minutes and then I would be deflected.

Melanie Serjak :

If you don't mind, I'm going to have to get back to you on that, just to make sure that I'm answering you correctly.

Anthony Housefather :

Of course.

Melanie Serjak :

Thank you.

Anthony Housefather :

I think you understand the difference.

Melanie Serjak :

Sure.

Anthony Housefather :

Nobody should be sent, after waiting on hold for 30 minutes, to an automated system and be given no choice but to do that once they've already wasted 30 minutes. I'd invite you, if the chair allows, to send a written response to the committee on that.

Melanie Serjak :

You bet.

Anthony Housefather :

Thanks. I have another question, which is with regard to escalation. As a Quebec member, I have multiple people who have complained to me about CRA's services. Ever since I became an MP—and it has escalated in the last few years—I've been constantly told that the Quebec revenue agency, Revenu Québec, gives better service than the CRA, which is really unfortunate. When you have a call that the person on the line cannot answer because it's too complicated—although I assume they have a book that they can read through with standard answers—what is the escalation procedure for this to be sent to somebody who is more experienced or better apt to answer the question? How does that work?

Melanie Serjak :

We have three tiers of phone agents, and those three tiers are directly related to the level of training, experience and expertise that they have. Tier one is the most basic information, and it goes up to tier three, which is very specialized information. Depending on the choice the caller makes when calling our general phone lines, they may end up immediately with a tier two agent, for example, or they may fall to the tier one.

Regardless of the tier, the call agents are equipped with a dedicated resource officer, and that resource officer is the person they turn to when they don't feel equipped or are unable to answer the phone call in question. What happens then is that they receive that information from the resource officer and relay it to the taxpayer. If at that point in time it still doesn't answer the taxpayer's question, there is an opportunity for the resource officer, if available, to speak directly with the caller. If the resource officer is not available, then we can

schedule a callback, where the resource officer will call back the individual taxpayer with the answers to what they were calling about.

(1305) Anthony Housefather :

That's really helpful. I have one last question, because I know we have pressing matters to get to. Commissioner Hamilton, this is a question that I sometimes ask. If you were to grade the CRA right now on customer service, what grade would you give it, ranging from an A, which is the best grade, to an F, which is a failing grade?

Bob Hamilton :

I prefer a world where other people grade me, but I would say I'd be somewhere between a B and a C, and I'll tell you why I say that and what the factors are. When I get a chance to see the challenges that we have to deliver on, giving service to 32 million Canadians in a complex environment with rising expectations, I do feel that the effort, innovation and commitment are there, and that might drive me more towards a B. On the other hand, when we talked about people waiting a long time for calls and about some accuracy concerns in part of the system, that would maybe drive me more to a C.

Where I want to be is in the A or B category because we started, in my domain, with putting a big emphasis on service. We had a chief service officer—who was Maxime Guénette, who is on the call. We paid attention to service. We were trying to do everything we could. We're now in a world where maybe we don't have the resources that are necessary to get us there, so we have to focus on innovations, process and technology. I think we will get there. There's one thing I know about the agency in my time here: When we are presented with a challenge, we deliver.

Sometimes it can take us a bit longer to get there because it's a big machine, but we are a highly digitalized, highly innovative agency. I think it's maybe a B or a C with an arrow pointing up. We're really on the way up, and we're going to conquer this problem. I know the agency is very excited about doing that. That's how I would grade myself.

Anthony Housefather :

Thanks very much.

The Chair :

Thank you. Auditor, are you interested in offering a letter grade?

Karen Hogan :

When Mr. Hamilton started speaking, I was sure someone was going to ask me. I want to echo his comment: I, too, prefer a world where someone else does the grading. There's a reason I'm an accountant and not a teacher. When I looked at the results of how many calls were answered within the service standard and the results that we saw about the accuracy of answers around general personal taxes, I would tell you those results were far from a passing grade.

The Chair :

Thank you very much. Mr. Hamilton, this is a serious issue. All of our offices have been inundated with calls on this matter, so we do urge you to take this very seriously going forward. It is distressing to our constituents, who, frankly, often view the government as a faraway entity that has tremendous powers to impose fees and penalties. Most of my constituents, the vast majority if not all of them, just want to follow the rules. They work hard, and they want to follow the rules and pay their taxes. When they can't do that, though, and when it falls on them, it's a challenge, and we hear about it.

That's why this has gripped Parliament the way it has. On that note, thank you to all the witnesses for coming in and helping us with this study of the report on the Canada Revenue Agency contact centres. I know it's going to continue. We passed a motion to that effect. We passed another one today, so you might hear from us again. I know the auditor and her team will be back in. On that note, you are all excused. I will suspend this meeting so that we can get set up for our in camera discussion. Thank you very much. This meeting is suspended. [ Proceedings continue in camera ]