Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We must not make things out to be worse than they are. Some organizations are doing well. Mr. Ferguson, you audited crown corporations such as the Pacific Pilotage Authority Canada and, a few months ago, VIA Rail Canada, and had good things to say. These are very solid and well-run organizations. We should follow their example.
Should we always choose the crown corporation model? That is an existential question, yet we must still tell Canadian taxpayers that it is not a disaster, that we are trying to improve systems.
More specifically, I would like to talk about the Canada Revenue Agency. Over the coming weeks, people will be celebrating Christmas and then a few months later they will have to file their income tax returns. We know this is quite stressful for some taxpayers and I think such lengthy processing times show a lack of respect on the part of the Canada Revenue Agency towards its clients.
In your presentation notes, it says:
We found that the agency's timeframe for a decision on straightforward files was about five months. For medium complexity files, the agency told taxpayers they could expect to wait up to a year before even hearing from an appeals officer.
Can this be interpreted as a way of discouraging taxpayers and thereby eliminating files by wearing people down?