Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 24th, 2014

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Let me make sure. Mr. Bennett is here from CRA.

[Dave Bennett]

Yes.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Would you be able to provide us with a copy of those 40 enhancements to CRA's online services from 2009 to 2012?

[Dave Bennett]

Certainly.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Ferguson, from the audit point of view, could you describe three or four of these CRA service enhancements that you're mentioning? I'd like to understand in a more concrete fashion what kind of impact they had.

[Michael Ferguson]

In general terms, they would be across the range of activities that CRA does, such as collecting information from people, providing access so people can ask questions, and things like that. It would really go across all aspects of their services.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay.

The reason I'm focusing on that is one of the things that I find causes most anxiety for my constituents and the connection they have most with the government is with respect to income taxes and Canada Revenue Agency. I am grateful to hear that Canada Revenue Agency is being so diligent and forward looking in this, because it worries me a little bit sometimes when I understand the amount of interaction we're having online.

Maybe I'll transfer that question to Mr. Bennett. I'm told that 76% of Canadians file their tax returns online. Is that correct?

[Dave Bennett]

Yes.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Could you give us a flavour for some of these 40 enhancements that you've been working on so diligently in CRA?

[Dave Bennett]

Certainly. I do have some examples. They cross the spectrum of individual business and those that are available for third party tax preparers.

With respect to some of the examples, we heard about the introduction of the new commercial credential. We have modified the My Account for individuals so that taxpayers can view their last 10 years' worth of tax returns online. They can get that information.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Sorry, Mr. Bennett, I have to intervene. My apologies, sir. I need to move on.

Mr. Giguère, you have the floor, sir.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank the witnesses for being with us.

Paragraph 2.18 of the Auditor General's report states that “[f]or three of the four departments we examined, we found that the transaction services Canadians can use online have not progressed since the end of the Government On-Line initiative in 2005.”

Mr. Ferguson, could you tell us which three departments you are referring to and what impact the situation is having on the quality of services available to Canadians? Could you also speak to the impact on the ability of these departments to offer services in the future, given that they have failed to make any progress at all in nine years?

[Michael Ferguson]

In paragraph 2.15 we referred to the four departments that were the subject of the audit. We were referring to Canada Revenue Agency as the organization that had made progress. The other three, at the time called Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, Veterans Affairs Canada and Industry Canada, were the three that we were referring to that had not made progress.

Again, the audit was about making sure that these types of services were client focused. That's what we were looking for. What we think needs to happen for the future is that there is a strategy that helps all of those departments move forward in providing more client-focused services online.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Continuing along the same lines, I want to turn to another section of the report, just above paragraph 2.36. There it says that “[t]here is no government-wide strategy to guide service delivery”. And that has been the case since 2006. In a nutshell, it sounds to me as though the orchestra has plenty of musicians but no conductor.

In its past few budgets, the government has stressed the importance of making services available to Canadians at a lower cost. But how can that happen when no operational follow-up has been carried out since 2006 and reporting on key services was not done when it should have been?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, what we noticed was that the government online initiative was in place. There was a reporting at the end of 2005 on the progress that had occurred under that strategy. What we were looking for, and I think it's laid out in our objective in paragraph 2.14, when we were talking about whether selected government departments offer Canadians client-focused online services, the audit examined specifically whether there is a Government of Canada strategy for delivering online services.

When we did the audit we knew that the government online initiative had existed before. We wanted to find out whether there was a strategy in place that picked up after that 2005 initiative, but we found that strategy had not been put in place.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

In paragraph 2.49, you talk about how the government abandoned Secure Channel in 2012 after spending $975 million on the secure infrastructure, including $377 million in implementation costs. In 2012, the government realized that the service was too complex, too difficult to make changes to and hard to use. According to your report, the government replaced it with a less expensive service. My goodness, we'd all be very rich if we invested in IT companies.

Is anyone in charge of keeping an eye on costs? Spending $377 million on implementing a system only to scrap it strikes me as a rather costly move.

[Michael Ferguson]

Essentially, what we were bringing forward here was that the whole secured—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I'm sorry, Auditor General, but I have to interrupt.

Mr. Hayes, you have the floor.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Auditor General, in your statement number two, you stated that in 2005, Canada was a world leader in online government service for our citizens, but since then, there has been a decline. In looking at that, we're still 11 out of 190 according to the United Nations. We're still in the top 6% in online services.

Would you suggest that being in the top 6% Canada is still classified as a world leader in the delivery of online services?

[Michael Ferguson]

We were pointing out that the ranking Canada has in that type of service has fallen back. Whether where it's ranked now is sufficient or not I'll leave for others to determine. The other thing we noticed, though, from the client satisfaction point of view was that the level of satisfaction had seemed to stall. We're pointing out that the situation has changed. It's not for us to say whether it is sufficient or not. We just wanted to make sure people were aware of what the situation is now.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I guess that would be the same for the level of satisfaction that went from 59% to 56%. That's classified as stalled. It's not really up to you or me to determine whether or not that's good; the figure is what it is. Is that what you're saying?

[Michael Ferguson]

That's right.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Okay.

Maybe you won't be able to answer this, I'm not sure. Specific to records of employment, I believe your report stated that online-wise employers are able to provide records of employment 70% of the time. I think that's something the government's been doing since 2003. Is that 70% figure a good figure? Should it be better? Did you find out why it wasn't 100% versus 50%? I'm curious as to your comments on that.

Ms. Giliberti, you can get ready for the next question, because I'm going to want you to pick up at that exact spot. Why isn't it 100%?

[Michael Ferguson]

Actually, what it says in paragraph 2.22 is “at the time of our audit, more than 70 percent of records of employment were submitted online.” We weren't implying in any way that it was a bad level of usage.

What we were talking about was that since 2006 there have been incremental improvements requested by business groups to the existing services. However, businesses still can't update their profiles or change their addresses online. What we were pointing out there was that there were other things that people were asking for in terms of improvements to the service, but they hadn't been able to deliver those yet.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Ms. Giliberti, what are the timelines, or what are the things that stall greater than 70%? Is there something legislative the government should be doing to bring that number up? I'm interested in your thoughts on that.