Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm very pleased to be here to discuss the Canada Revenue Agency's action plan stemming from the recommendations in report 6 of the Office of the Auditor General.
You've already mentioned that I'm joined by three members, so I won't repeat that.
In report 6 on the Canada emergency response benefit, the Auditor General noted that despite challenging circumstances, the CRA and ESDC quickly designed and launched an emergency benefit to support workers who lost income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency is proud of this accomplishment, and I am proud of all of our employees and what they did. When the government called upon us, we met this challenge and delivered this important benefit to eligible workers as quickly as possible.
The OAG also acknowledged that once the benefit was launched, both we and ESDC introduced additional prepayment controls to limit potential abuse of the benefit. Within that context, the Auditor General made two recommendations to the agency, which the agency accepted.
First, the Auditor General recommended that both organizations should finalize and implement their plans for the CERB post-payment verification work. Second, the Auditor General of Canada recommended that both organizations conduct a formal assessment of the delivery of the CERB in order to apply the findings to the design and delivery of future government emergency response and recovery benefits.
The agency has agreed with both recommendations and has advanced a detailed action plan with timelines to implement them.
With respect to the first recommendation, the agency's verification work will be largely supported by information that will become available during the 2020 tax filing season, which is under way now. This will help avoid unnecessary reviews of recipients who may in fact have been eligible to receive a benefit payment or who may have already voluntarily repaid monies owing.
The agency will finalize and implement its post-verification plan in collaboration with ESDC. This strategy will consider the economic landscape and the ongoing state of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to administer responsible and appropriate compliance measures while maintaining the fairness and integrity of the CERB program and ensuring the sound stewardship of public funds.
As we indicated in our response, beginning in August 2021, the agency will leverage 2020 tax filing data to do risk assessment of the CERB recipient population in order to select and prioritize cases for post-payment reviews.
With respect to the second recommendation, the agency will conduct a formal assessment of the delivery of the CERB. This will allow us to identify best practices and lessons learned and to determine if functionality and processes can be leveraged in a future urgency or crisis.
The findings from this exercise will be available by December 31 of this year, and these findings will support the design and delivery of future government emergency response and recovery programs.
In light of all these measures included in the agency's action plan, I am pleased to report that the agency is acting on the recommendations arising from the report.
In closing, I want to recognize explicitly the CRA employees who were given the daunting task of developing programs to quickly distribute emergency financial aid to millions of Canadians. I might add that in the midst of last year's filing season and a pandemic that we were also part of here at the agency, their rapid response has helped Canadians put food on the table through the Canada emergency response benefit. This was no small feat, and I offer them my sincere thanks.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to answer any questions the members have.