Do you know what? I don't think you need you need a Ph.D. in anything to get that. That's what struck me. The level of common sense seemed to be missing.
I touched on something earlier, and I want to come back to it again. It's about the Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsman. It's related, to the extent that $2.3 million of taxpayers' money was spent through this department. Again, I want to remind colleagues that this is the report that said, “our role is not to be an advocate for taxpayers,” and then three paragraphs later, “we serve taxpayers”. Give me a break.
In this report, there's $2.3 million a year for this ombudsman, who by the way, is not an agent of Parliament. This is an ombudsman attached to the minister. I'm not even sure they should be allowed to call themselves ombudsmen, in light of that. However:
Our office has received numerous complaints from taxpayers and representatives in recent years, claiming it is very difficult to connect with the CRA's general enquiries telephone lines.
You think?
A recurring complaint from taxpayers is they reach a busy signal, regardless of the time of the day they call, forcing them to make multiple calls. Given the announcement of increased funding for telephone access and initiatives underway by the CRA, our Office is not opening an examination at this time, but we are monitoring this issue.