Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[Karen Hogan]

I think it's a joint onus. The provinces have signed on to a funding agreement and have agreed that they would make regular reporting, but then the onus is also on the federal government to make sure that reporting is comprehensive and accurate.

For example, we saw good controls. Funding was withheld or the next tranche of funding was withheld when reports hadn't been received. Once they were received, the money then flowed to the provinces.

What was concerning was the content of that. For example, in one case, it talked about child care spaces for individuals age six and over, when this was supposed to fund five and under. It's just some of that accuracy. That onus is on the federal government, to make sure that the money is being used as intended.

[Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal, Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON]

The quality of the information that was being provided wasn't necessarily what we should have had.

Do you have any ideas for how we can improve gathering that data and information? Is it more policy-based or culture-based?

[Karen Hogan]

The existing funding agreements actually have clauses that call for the sharing of information. I think it's about sitting down with the provinces and agreeing on exactly what will come and sort of forcing a consistent approach across all of them about which buckets of information will be provided.

We saw this during the pandemic. When the country needed information about individuals who had COVID, there was an agreement on what to send off. It wasn't always in a timely way, but at least it was possible.

I am hopeful that the federal government can do that with the provinces and territories to get a better picture across the country.

[Kristina Tesser Derksen, Liberal, Milton East—Halton Hills South, ON]

Thank you.

On the same report, I want to talk about something I just caught in your “At a Glance” section, which is the overall message. You talk a little bit about the equitability of access to child care spaces. There was a line that said, “those spaces may also not be equitably accessible to diverse or vulnerable families.” I note the use of your word “may”. I suspect this has to do, again, with the data collection and information sharing.

Can you expand on why you have uncertainty about the equitability of the access to these spaces?

[Karen Hogan]

I think this speaks exactly to the different definitions used for accessibility across provinces and territories and also to the different approaches in reporting back. This is why having a consistent understanding and agreement with everyone would help.

We found that the reporting was telling the federal government that there are more inclusive spots, but not whether they were even being taken up and who was occupying them. It's just some basic information that I think would be easy. The provinces have it. The day care centres have it. It just needs to make its way to the federal government.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is the time.

We are now going to begin our third and final round. I'm going to be sticking a little closer to the assigned times, because I know the Auditor General does have an appointment after this. We're running just a little bit behind schedule, but not too badly.

Mr. Stevenson, you will kick things off for five minutes, please.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

I'm going to go back to the CRA audit. As a CPA in public practice for 26 years, I had many occasions to sit on hold and waste lots of time waiting for CRA, especially when the service levels went down in the last few years.

You have a lot of information in the report. Your report specifically showed how the number of agents ballooned in 2022-23, and then it has come back down. Did you see any reasons for the changing of the number of agents? Was that affected by the push to go to self-service with regard to My Account and online? Are there other reasons why the number of agents has decreased?

[Karen Hogan]

Obviously, the number of agents and the tools they have directly impact the timeliness and the quality of service that's received.

We asked the Canada Revenue Agency about the fluctuations in the number of agents, and it was based on their budget and the constraints over periods of time. The goal was to have people use more self-serve with My Account and the chatbot, but, as I mentioned previously, it resulted in more calls about accessing My Account.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

In dealing with lots of seniors who are not going to be dealing with online services and people who may not be seniors but are not technically able to deal with those, they're going to be relying much more on these call centres.

In some of the stats you had, you said that only 17% of the non-specific information was actually accurate and also that the annual training and analysis was about 30 minutes per agent. To me, that means there's virtually no training in there, which would lead to the quality of the calls.

Is there any evidence that the CRA, in giving you all this information, has programs to...? You're saying they don't have the tools, so what do they actually have that is going to increase the quality of these agents, going forward?

[Karen Hogan]

I agree with you. I remember that I could help my dad with his tax return, but he always preferred calling the Canada Revenue Agency to get an answer, so I can appreciate that many people want to call and speak to someone.

They had quality evaluations, and those quality evaluations highlighted either gaps in information or—

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

That's just for statistics. That doesn't say how they are actually training them to get them there.

[Karen Hogan]

What's missing from there is that there was very little actionable feedback given to an agent or an agent's supervisor, and as a result there was very little training.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

There was almost no training, then.

[Karen Hogan]

We made a recommendation about triaging the calls: If it's about My Account, put it in one area. There is a different set of training and skills needed there, versus if it's about tax questions and meeting your obligations. There's a different set of skills and tools needed there. We hope that will help improve the service going forward.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Going back to that, is there any evidence that they are addressing the timing of these calls? We have lots of statistics, but, as I learned from a stats professor in university, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Having the statistics doesn't mean anything if they're not going to actually do something about it and have an ability to help their agents do it.

From your analysis, was there anything in there to indicate that they're actually going to try to adjust these by giving their agents the tools?

[Karen Hogan]

I agree that you can make statistics tell just about any story. That's why it's important to always balance the statistics that you look at.

I'm going to point to the evaluation for the agents. Less than 10% of it placed importance on the accuracy and completeness of a response. When you set that out, the culture you set out is not one focusing on getting the answer right, but one focusing on adhering to schedules or meeting call volume.

Fundamentally, they need to start there. What you measure ends up in results, so you need to measure accuracy and place more importance on accuracy.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

You just made a point about the culture. Would you say that there's a lack of culture to address meeting taxpayers' rights?

[Karen Hogan]

That's a tricky question to answer, because the Canadian tax system is a voluntary system in which the onus is placed on you, me and everyone else in the country to provide accurate information in our tax returns. The Canada Revenue Agency's responsibility is to support taxpayers in doing that. What we found is that taxpayers are waiting too long and are not getting accurate responses when they call.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

That is your time, Mr. Stevenson.

Up next is Mr. Housefather for five minutes, please.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, and happy anniversary. I really appreciate your work.

When was the last date at which you collected information for this audit?

[Karen Hogan]

Do you mean the Canada Revenue Agency audit?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Yes.

[Karen Hogan]

Our audit period ended on June 30, but we concluded that we had all of the information we needed in October.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

As part of this, you didn't track the 100-day plan the government has now put into effect. Is that right? Any benefits from that would have come after that date.

Have you been able to observe, since then, any appreciable changes that have happened as a result of the 100-day plan that you are satisfied with?

[Karen Hogan]

You're right. The 100-day plan was issued after the end of our audit period. I am aware of it and I have looked at it. That's why I said earlier that the 100-day plan, in combination with the actions in response to our recommendations, will, I hope, improve service time and service quality.