Evidence of meeting #7 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
December 10th, 2021 / 2:40 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
—take it on an attestation basis and provide amounts. Yes, that would be a—
2:40 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
[Inaudible—Editor] possible.
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Liberal
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is directed to the CFO of CRA, Janique. It's in response to my colleague Mr. McLean's question. Have the Calgary police, the RCMP or any investigative agency reached out to CRA with respect to the potential CERB fraud and the involvement of certain politicians in that area?
2:40 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Thank you for the question.
I am not aware that we were approached with that information.
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Conservative
2:40 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Just a precision, as the CFO, I'm not necessarily involved in some of the criminal investigations.
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Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
This question continues to be asked. It was answered.
Again, they're not politicians. I know that Mr. Stewart is new to the committee. We're talking to public servants today. Once public servants answer a question, continuing to ask them a line of questioning that seems to be explicitly political is highly inappropriate.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, in response to that point, this is not a political question. It's very much an administrative fraud question.
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Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Obviously, I see it as a very important question, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, again my question to the CFO of CRA is this: How much of the $7.4 billion is it going to cost Canadians to administer the program, or is there an amount above that?
2:40 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Thank you for the question.
I believe that this was included in the information we shared in writing earlier with the committee. For the measures that are included in Bill C-2, at this point the preliminary estimate of the whole cost to administer these programs is $184 million over five years. They are preliminary estimates, in the sense that we still have some analysis to do. We need to consult some of the other government departments that are partnered with us. These costs include only the CRA costs, but it's the best information we have available at this time.
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Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Okay. Thank you.
What type of increase has there been in the number of employees hired at CRA to administer the program? Do you have numbers on—
2:40 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Again, in the same exercise, in terms of the measures that are proposed in Bill C-2, we think that at peak times—we increase and level off—we would need 650 full-time equivalents to administer these programs.
2:40 p.m.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Thank you.
If you were to take a look at the information provided by FINTRAC in July 2020 and the reporting it has done since, what do you think the total scope of fraud in the prior program would be? How many millions of dollars would it involve? What's the ceiling on the potential defrauded amounts?
2:40 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I do not have that information, but perhaps my colleague Mr. Lemieux can.... We've already indicated, I think, that the programs and our verification processes are in progress. In some instances they have not started, so we don't have the full picture.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
2:45 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Collections and Verification Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Again, we haven't started the post-verification work on these programs. We don't have an estimate of the fraud in those programs. As we begin that work, we will assess the risks and we will determine how many resources we have to put towards it. We are going to be, as we provided in the written answer, doing that work over the coming years.
2:45 p.m.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Today, obviously, we have money laundered. We have fraud, which happened to Canadian taxpayers. My constituents in Miramichi—Grand Lake certainly don't want to pay for any of that. Nobody's constituents here would want to pay for that. Anyone in their right mind who is paying taxes doesn't want criminals to get their money. No one wants to pay for it.
This has been going on since March 2020, and nobody has investigated anything. How does CRA feel about that? Do you think it's a good plan to wait two years to even think about going after the fraudsters? And now we're making another program with another $7 billion to $8 billion.
My question is, how's that benefiting the Canadian taxpayers?
2:45 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Programs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Perhaps I can answer the question, Mr. Chair.
