Public Accounts Committee on April 22nd, 2021

[Bob Hamilton]

I would note two points.

Obviously the tax filing season is approaching on April 30. I would highlight a few things in a hypothetical way in terms of what goes on each year that would come into play if we were to extend the tax filing season.

The most important thing I would flag is that we rely on tax filings to be able to deliver benefits—the child benefit, for example, or the GST credit—in the upcoming year. The time is relatively short there. We need to get the filing, establish the eligibility and get the payments out in relatively short order for the July start of the new year. If we were to delay the filing season, there could be quite an impact on our ability to deliver benefits in a timely way.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

If I could kindly interject, though, there are potential fixes to that, correct, as I believe there were last year?

[Bob Hamilton]

We do the best we can if we have to. It's an advantage for us if we have a long lead time to think about that. That's one consideration.

From my perspective, the government has taken a number of steps to try to recognize the unique circumstances we're in during the pandemic to make it easier for people to file. From our side on the compliance effort, we do engage in discussions on payment plans. If people find that the burden of paying their taxes is too onerous at the beginning, they can talk to us and we can try to come up with some sort of revised payment plan for them. We have mechanisms to try to make it easier for Canadians, but this year the filing deadline will be April 30.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I'll just take that as a yes, and then I'll yield the time to Mr. Webber.

Obviously, it was done the year before, and obviously it would be possible to do it again. I'm a little disappointed that you weren't able to say that, Mr. Hamilton.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Mr. Webber, you will have one minute.

It looks like we've lost Mr. Webber.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I will continue. That's fine.

Mr. Hamilton, with no disrespect, it would have been and would be possible. I'm not asking for all the great things the CRA does for Canadians. I have no doubt to agree with you that this is true, but it would be and would have been possible to delay the tax filing deadline as it was last year, correct?

Yes or no is fine.

[Bob Hamilton]

If you're asking me as of right now if it's possible, I would say no. Is it technically possible in a given year to delay it? Yes, it is technically possible, with enough advance work.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

It was possible, then, for the CRA to delay the tax filing if the government had chosen to give that to people who are going through a pandemic, especially given the fact that you've locked out nearly a million Canadians from their My Account.

This has been something that's been requested by CPAs, accountants and Canadians across the border. It took two years to file a budget, yet we can't give Canadians two months to delay their tax returns.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence. We are over time.

I will now move to Mr. Sorbara for five minutes.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, everyone, again.

Auditor General, thank you for the series of reports. I've been able to go over all of them with a fine-tooth comb. I read the Investing in Canada plan last night and reviewed the CEWS report again this morning.

I think one thing coming out of the pandemic that we and every organization will do for sure is review systems and processes. I think of a supply chain for a company bringing products into Canada, whether it's a grocery store or manufacturing of any extent. I also think of an organization much like the Canada Revenue Agency, ESDC or the Department of Finance and their ability to deliver services—in this case, benefits—to Canadians during a pandemic. There are seven-odd programs that CRA has had to deliver to Canadians with, obviously, help on the design and format from other departments, such as the Department of Finance, ESDC and so forth.

Auditor General, when I look at your recommendations, I see recommendation 7.58, “To improve the integrity and validation efficiency of any future emergency programs, the Canada Revenue Agency should use automated validations with a unique identifier that can be used in all programs.”

Then I go to 7.68, which says, “In our view, this situation demonstrates the need for the agency to have sub-annual data and up-to-date earnings and tax data when it administers income support programs with eligibility criteria based on sub-annual earnings.”

When I think of that in this report, I look to two things. One is what's happening with the unique identifier program and the work that's being done there. The other is what's in our budget on page 311, “E-payroll to Help Businesses”.

I'm a forward-looking person in terms of where and how we improve our process and the information that's available to organizations, be they finance, CRA or ESDC. How important is it that we continue improving our processes with the unique identifier system—a unique identifier number, if I can call it that—and the development of e-payroll?

First I'll turn to the Auditor General, then to the CRA, then to finance, please.

[Karen Hogan]

One of our recommendations does ask the government to consider a unique identifier. While many will say that every Canadian has one now—it's our social insurance number—the SIN is a unique identifier that we want to protect for privacy and identity theft reasons. That's why a unique identifier that would allow a Canadian to interact with many departments or many programs across the government is an option that the government should be looking at. It is available in other countries. It would allow the government to protect identity as well as facilitate interaction between an individual and its government.

There are a lot of things to work out through that, but it should be looked at. That's different from accessing systems, adding layers of protection to access systems, which is always beneficial and always needed. That's just that other layer of protection for cybersecurity.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Auditor General.

I would like to move over to the CRA and to finance, please.

[Bob Hamilton]

Madam Chair, perhaps I'll take that question for this part before going to the Department of Finance.

I guess you've raised two issues. I won't repeat what the Auditor General said, but certainly we are interested in securing our systems as much as possible.

We believe we have a secure system. We've taken some actions in addition to them to respond to new threats, but the biggest thing on the horizon is the Government of Canada-wide initiative to look at Sign in Canada, which provides an identifier, a digital ID, that could be used across the government. That's a project that's in train. It will take a little bit of time to come to fruition, but it provides a great opportunity.

On the issue of real-time data, obviously it would always be better to have real-time data. We do need to think about our systems and the burdens on Canadian businesses, etc., but as you noted, in the budget there is funding provided to start some work on what would be an e-payroll system to get more timely payroll data, which would be beneficial in a circumstance of the kind we just went through. Hopefully the consultations will show that it will be beneficial in the longer term, even without a pandemic.

We look forward to launching those consultations and finding out what people think about that and where the opportunities are. It won't be something that can come very quickly, but I think it does have at least potential at this stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

From finance we will have to have a very short answer, as we are over time.

[Andrew Marsland]

I can't really add anything to Mr. Hamilton's answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you, Mr. Marsland.

We will now go to our two-and-a-half minute round, starting with Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Would it be possible to extend the meeting, given that two votes were held.

Are my colleagues and our witnesses available to continue?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

I would need to seek the will of the committee members. We have had longer with our witnesses than we would have had if we had continued the meeting last Thursday. I think we ended up not continuing with our witnesses for the last 45 minutes of our meeting.

I'm certainly at the will of the committee if you would like us to check with the technicians as to whether we can actually continue, but I will let others speak.

Go ahead, Mr. Blois.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Chair, unfortunately I'm not available after this time. I will start trying to put a little bit more time between the committee business and my other work and activities, but as you can appreciate, there are other things to get done. I'm thus hoping we can wrap up relatively shortly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Go ahead, Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Unfortunately, I can't stay any longer today either. I would have liked to say yes to my colleague, but I can't stay beyond 1 p.m.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

Seeing no other interventions, I will make the decision to end at one o'clock. I know that votes have a way of impeding the work of committees, and that's part of the reality we work within as members of Parliament.

I have suspended the clock, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, so if you would like to, you may continue with your round of questioning.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to take it from the top again with Mr. Marsland.

Mr. Marsland, the Department of Finance Canada did a partial analysis of the Canada emergency wage subsidy program. Afterwards, it carried out a rigorous and complete analysis in July. That's what led to some changes to the program.

The Auditor General prepared a report on the wage subsidy. However, she told us that she could not provide us with detailed information about your analyses because they had been classified secret.

I'm trying to find out who decided this. Was it the Department of Finance or the Privy Council? Who's in charge?

[Andrew Marsland]

Thank you for the question.

We provided all of the documents that are relevant to the Auditor General. Those documents included cabinet confidences. We assessed those documents, reviewing them to make sure they were appropriately classified, and then proceeded from there.

The documents were the documents we have attached—

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Marsland, I'll stop you there. I don't know what to say. Do I look that naive?

You're not answering my question. Who decides? Is it the Department of Finance or the Privy Council? That's what we want to know.

You're spending astronomical amounts of money under a program, over $100 billion, and then say you're not going to share the information used in your analysis. You cannot be serious. There is a lack of transparency from your department.

In addition to not answering my question, you're not providing the program analyses, the information, or the data. Why won't you answer my question?

Who made the decision? Was it your department or the Privy Council?

The question is clear, and the answer has to be either A and B.