Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

That is the time, Mr. Osborne, and a little bit extra, as well.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Ms. Hogan, and congratulations.

I also want to thank your entire hard-working team. Five years is a nice anniversary. However, it also means that we may only have five years left with you, which is less good news.

As usual, your report is compelling.

I want to point out that your report mentions the very troubling fact that Canada Revenue Agency employees were able to provide accurate information to clients in only 83% of cases.

You quite rightly referred to a performance appraisal done in an agency office that indicates that the suggested pass mark, which is 60%, can be given to an employee who arrives on time, takes their breaks at the right time and finishes calls at the right time, even if they have given someone incorrect information that will impact that person. The employee may get a score of 60% or more because their behaviour is appropriate and they comply with policies and procedures. However, misinformation concerns the Canada Revenue Agency and can have serious consequences for a Quebecker or Canadian. There's something very shocking about that.

You also raised the issue of inaccuracy in 2017. How can we explain that, eight years later, the situation has not changed?

[Karen Hogan]

I will qualify my answer.

The situation has changed, depending on the type of question put to the Canada Revenue Agency. If someone wants general information on taxation, for example, whether for an individual or a business, they get accurate information only 17% of the time, or about half that percentage in the case of a business.

However, whenever someone asks for information about a particular account or environment, such as whether a return has been processed or when a benefit will be paid, they get accurate information more than 80% of the time. You have to take into account the reason for the request for information.

Things have improved, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. When someone contacts the agency for tax-related information, they may wait a long time and get inaccurate information. Therefore, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Canada has two official languages. I understand that you made some test calls. Have you noticed a difference between English and French in terms of the speed, quality or accuracy of answers?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes, we made test calls to verify the accuracy of answers to general questions that did not concern a specific taxpayer's account. We did not see a difference between English and French, whether in terms of wait times or the accuracy and completeness of responses.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

We see that, once again, the system was designed by IBM Canada. That's the same firm that was involved in the Phoenix benefits delivery modernization and many other programs. Therefore, you've often conducted investigations related to systems created by IBM. There's also GC Strategies, the company involved in the ArriveCAN scandal, and an audit of SAAQclic was launched in Quebec.

Do you think it's time to investigate the use of these types of contracts and companies, which continue to cause problems? Should we set up a commission of inquiry into the use of such firms, particularly IBM?

[Karen Hogan]

It's not up to me to decide to set up a commission of inquiry. However, we found many red flags in the management of the contract for the communications centre telephone system, including insufficient verification of invoices. I'm undertaking an audit on the management of that contract in particular, and I intend to report to Parliament about it in 2026.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

The government seems to be looking at AI as a solution to be more efficient.

You mentioned that the CRA chatbot agent only answered two out of six questions correctly.

Is that a concern?

[Karen Hogan]

That's right, AI tools did provide more accurate answers than Charlie, the CRA chatbot agent. However, two out of six correct answers is a 33% success rate, which is better than what people can expect if they call in to ask general questions.

That said, I encourage the government to improve all of its communication tools. Some people want to talk to an officer, while others are very happy to use automated tools. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of service improvements need to be made.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In your report, you raise the case of a 90-year-old person who had trouble authenticating their identity. This happens to seniors, and there's no ideal solution, but would it be possible to set up a dedicated phone line for seniors or offer them in-person services to direct them to the right place, based on their needs?

That would be a good way to adapt to a clientele that is often vulnerable to new technologies.

[Karen Hogan]

We didn't address that in our assessment, but we looked at the phone lines for the northern region and for the three territories, and we found that calls using a northern area code were being prioritized and that the service standard was being met.

I don't know how that could be applied to seniors, but it's important to mention that, although it's a long step, multifactor authentication is essential to protect taxpayers' personal information.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We'll begin our second round, which will consist of members asking questions for between two and a half minutes and five minutes.

We'll turn now to Ms. Goodridge.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the team for being here.

Congratulations, Ms. Hogan, on your five-year anniversary.

In your report on child care, you say that the Liberals have fulfilled their responsibilities. When it comes to flexibility, there's no metric. In your report, you also state that families outside of the standard hours are struggling to find care. I'm just wondering how you can say they are meeting their responsibilities.

[Karen Hogan]

I said that the federal funding has led to improvements in early childhood care and learning, but there is still time left to decide whether all the responsibilities have been met.

The federal funding has helped reduce the cost of child care. Five provinces and three territories are already at $10 a day, which is ahead of the deadline of 2026. Additional spots have been created, but there's still a lot of work left to be done there. It was impossible for me to evaluate other areas, whether it came to accessibility or the quality of child care.

While the funding has helped improve the situation, there's still room for improvement.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Do we have any idea how many kids are still without care?

[Karen Hogan]

All I know is what the federal government received from the provinces and territories. I can highlight what Statistics Canada would tell you. In 2021, there were 2.2 million children aged five years and under, and more than half of them were in child care. That was at an average cost of over $30 a day. The fact that 112,000 spots have been created, which is less than half of the target, is why I raised the risk that filling the 250,000 spots or creating those spots might be very difficult to achieve.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Do you know how many of the new spots are actually filled?

[Karen Hogan]

That's actually a piece of information that the federal government isn't gathering from the provinces and territories. In fact, they turned to another Statistics Canada survey to understand why parents may not be taking up the new spots.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Part of why I asked this is that the Auditor General of Ontario recently studied this and found that 27% of spots weren't being filled. That's very concerning to me. We are spending a lot of money. The Liberals keep boasting about how much money is being spent. We don't know how many kids are actually seeing the benefits of this.

[Karen Hogan]

You raised something that I've been working on with some of my colleagues in the provincial auditors general offices. We felt that it was important to try to coordinate some of our work on topics exactly like this, where there's a lot of federal funding, but a lot of the heavy lifting happens in the provinces and territories. There will be two other provinces looking at this as well. I think it's important so that you can see the picture from the start to the finish: where the funding comes from and then how it actually happens.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Is there any standard information being collected across the provinces on this?

[Karen Hogan]

There is some information being collected, but the government allowed every province and territory to provide it in whatever format they wanted. There's flexibility in the agreements. We recommended that to make sure they get consistent and standardized information.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I'm going to shift gears over to the first nations report. I found the information in that incredibly troubling. As the member of Parliament for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, wildfire is something that is very familiar to me.

You stated that not all provinces have wildfire agreements. Which provinces have wildfire agreements?

[Karen Hogan]

There are currently five provinces that have wildfire agreements: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. I think it's important to note that it doesn't mean that every first nation community in that province is signed on to that service agreement.