Finance Committee on June 21st, 2006

[Michel Dorais]

Mr. Chairman, if my opening remarks were brief, it was out of respect for the committee, I wanted to leave more time for discussion.

Let me refer the honourable member to the 80-page document we tabled before the committee and where we describe the results we have achieved over the past five years. The graphs in this document show how the agency has evolved over the past years. We also table before Parliament every year a performance report which is audited by the auditor general. Our standards of service are covered in this report. They are explained in detail in the special appendix at the end of the report. I think that we are the only agency that tables its standards of service before Parliament on a yearly basis.

Thus, we have a fairly substantial amount of information that leaves us to conclude that we are advancing. We have not solved all the problems, obviously. However, we are a large agency and we are making significant progress.

As for our contacts with other fiscal agencies, especially in Quebec, we have excellent relations with the Quebec government as well as a protocol for exchanging information that can guide us in this field.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Was the document that you mentioned, tabled at today's sitting, or had it been tabled previously?

[Michel Dorais]

It was tabled during the previous session and it was tabled again last week before the Finance Committee.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Today's meeting is specifically aimed at analyzing your service performance over the past five years. It would had been useful for us to see an overview of the indicators and improvements used in keeping with your three mandates.

[Michel Dorais]

I leave this up to the Chairman, because the document was tabled last week, at the beginning of this series of testimonies. Now we have come to the end of it.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Regarding your performance, could you tell me if you have really increased the amount of revenue collected over the past five years?

[Michel Dorais]

Yes. In fact, we went from $275 billion to $307 billion over the past five years.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Do you think that you have reached full capacity, or do you think that further efforts could be made to improve your performance?

[Michel Dorais]

We have not yet reached full capacity. On the contrary, our tests show that if we proceed in a more targeted way, we will collect more money. We could, for instance, audit companies and taxpayers by using a more targeted risk analysis. However, growth has been steady during the past five years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Merci, monsieur.

We'll continue with Madam Ablonczy, s'il vous plaît.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

It's good to see you again.

It's a thorough review, but I think it will be good. Of course you heard the concerns expressed by the CGA a little bit earlier. I'd just like to take you through the four main concerns expressed by this organization; we take those very seriously.

Of course the CGA works very closely with your agency day in and day out, and so the first issue raised was the predictability, the consistency of decisions. There are complaints that the rules of the game change from month to month sometimes, or even more often. Do you agree this area needs to be improved? And if you do, what specific measures will be taken to deliver some improvement?

[Michel Dorais]

Mr. Baker will take some of it, but let me comment generally, because to be honest, I was a little surprised at the statement.

On the one hand, the expert accountants are saying the Income Tax Act is very complicated, and there's a lot of room for interpretation. On the other hand, all the agents of the Canada Revenue Agency are expected to have a perfect mastery of the Income Tax Act. It happens, and every time it happens, when it's brought to our attention, we take immediate action to correct it and we distribute the information throughout the system in the most accurate way. So it's obvious, with the complexity of such a legislation and 40,000 people distributed across the country, that one person can interpret something slightly differently, but it happens that we have to make some corrections.

But our training program is uniform across the country, and we try to measure it in a uniform way across the country to ensure that consistency.

Mr. Baker, did you want to add to that?

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I don't have much time, so maybe very quickly.

[William Baker]

Very quickly, if I could add to this, we also have in place a number of quality review mechanisms whereby we'll go out and look at the activities and decisions made by different offices across the country. And if we detect an inconsistency, we will look at the right solution for that. It could be a technical letter, it could be additional training, or whatever, but we have mechanisms to deal with these.

Just to say one other thing, the essential tension in the system is to allow our auditors, and other people in particular, the discretion to be able to deal with taxpayers in a reasonable period of time and come up with a fair and reasonable outcome. We have to allow them some scope to manoeuvre. They can't be completely programmed, because despite the fact that it's long, the Income Tax Act isn't as long as some people would like it to be. So we manage these situations as best we can.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

That makes sense.

I appreciated your answer to my earlier question about how employees were dealt with who perhaps had treated taxpayers unfairly--misconduct. I was interested, though, because as you mention, there are 40,000 employees across the country, but I see here only four disciplinary cases in the last year. I find it hard to believe only four of 40,000 warranted disciplinary measures.

[Michel Dorais]

In fact, a lot of the issues are dealt with at the local level, and those statistics are not necessarily available. The local manager has the responsibility to ensure that whoever works in that unit has a certain level of respect and courtesy and operates according to the internal code that we have. If there are some discrepancies there that are brought to his or her attention, they take immediate action in the field.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

If there has been disciplinary action at the local level, are you advised of that at the national level?

[Lysanne Gauvin]

We use a progressive measure of discipline. The first discipline is a verbal--

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

That wasn't my question. Do you know about it?

[Lysanne Gauvin]

The verbal warnings, the verbal discipline, we do not capture, but if the discipline is over and above that, if it's written, or for those types of things, we do have the information in terms of the total number of times the discipline is issued.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

So you haven't advised me in your answer as to the total number of disciplinary actions. I guess I'm wondering why, because you obviously know about them.

[Lysanne Gauvin]

I'm sorry. I thought the question was how many disciplinary actions we had taken with respect to inappropriate behaviour towards taxpayers.

Most of the disciplinary actions we take are with respect to employees who are not respecting our own internal guidelines for things like electronic mail, and things like that.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I did get that from your answer. I'm sorry to keep interrupting, but I have such a short time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Madame Ablonczy, your time unfortunately has elapsed.

But further to Madame Ablonczy's inquiries, I think it would be wise to forward the information she requested in full to the committee. That has not been done. I understand the rationalization that you have given the committee, but I believe Madame Ablonczy is asking you for further information. So I would appreciate it if that could be compiled, and I thank you for that.

[Lysanne Gauvin]

No problem.