Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I don't know if I would say that it's the hardest job, but it's a job that has many rewards and many challenges.
One of the most important things I can do, that we as an organization can do, is to give people trust and confidence in us. Because we run a self-assessment system, it's extremely important for me to not only to generate money that is owed and expected, but that people feel that everybody is paying their fair share, that we are auditing and enforcing appropriately, and explaining ourselves and being as consistent as possible.
This report has certainly shown that we have to improve in the area of consistency. However, we've already started to do a number of things to try to restore that faith and trust, because it's an absolutely critical part of what we do.
We have increased our efforts on the offshore area. There has been additional money. We're also trying to make sure that we're being as clear in communicating what we do as well as possible. We have a service agenda, which is asking our auditors to not only collect money but to also think about the relationship they have with taxpayers—to be educating them, talking to them, and that there are early interventions to try to get long-term compliance. We're seeing some benefits in that.
Each time an issue gets raised with us, we're trying to change that service culture within the CRA to give people more confidence in us.
It is true that when we look over time in our public opinion research, we see that not everybody thinks we're doing a perfect job, so we have miles left to go. However, I don't think we are just sitting around and saying the future is going to be bright; we are saying that we are taking some actions right now. Some of them have borne fruit, and we expect to take more in response to either issues that we uncover, or that the Auditor General or somebody else uncovers.
I do know, in terms of the tough part of the job, that it's an agency that touches a lot of Canadians' lives. We have a lot of people who work at the CRA, and it's going to be a never-ending task to make sure that we operate with the highest level of integrity to give Canadians the trust and confidence they need.
I take it very seriously.