Public Accounts Committee on May 4th, 2021

[Frank Vermaeten]

Madam Chair, I'd be happy to contribute to this.

Let me give you a couple of examples that we deal with on a regular basis. You can imagine that a woman in a shelter for battered women, for example, may not be able to go back to the house to get the information they need in order to prove that they have custody, or she may not have the birth certificate handy to her. In those cases, here is a woman who clearly still has custody of children and needs support, so we need to find a way to help those individuals.

Perhaps in the indigenous context, a scenario could be that the parents are no longer able to take care of the child, and the grandmother takes custody. Again, it may be a difficult situation, because the grandmother may not have access to the necessary paperwork, and again we want to do whatever we can to ensure that the children, effectively, are supported.

We try to work as best we can to have a reasonable substitute and try to build on that over time. In that sense, in some cases we are taking a bit of a risk. We're managing that risk by saying that if we don't have all the right information right now, we're willing to live without this information for a short period of time, recognizing that we're not always going to get it right, but I think that we do get it right in the large majority of cases.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

As a follow-up, according to the OAG's report other branches of the agency and other federal departments were likely to have information that could support a benefit application—for example, the renewal of a resident card. Access to this information would have to be enabled to access eligibility with higher levels of confidence.

Is this information not accessible due to legal restrictions on sharing information between CRA and departments or even between branches of the CRA, or could this information be easily accessible?

[Frank Vermaeten]

Perhaps I could turn to my colleague Heather Daniels with respect to the privacy-sharing rules.

I think it's very case-specific. In some cases, there are going to be limitations in terms of whether the other department is able to share that information. At other times, it's a system issue: Can the systems talk to each other? In other cases, there's definitely progress that we can make in some of these issues, as the OAG pointed out. We're working on that on a number of fronts.

Could I turn to Heather and ask her whether she wanted to contribute anything to this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Absolutely. Heather, you have 20 seconds.

[Heather Daniels, Director General, Benefit Programs Directorate, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency]

Yes, absolutely.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I had a minute and 15 seconds, but that's okay.

[Heather Daniels]

I would agree. I believe Mr. Vermaeten covered the scenarios. Often there are privacy issues with respect to sharing of information, so there are limitations. In some cases, we can develop a memorandum of understanding, an MOU, with another department to facilitate the process of information sharing, as we've recently done with Canada Border Services in our agreement to receive information on exit data.

We are making much progress in respect of sharing information with other departments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

My apologies, Mr. Green. You do have another 30 seconds.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll take that time to again thank the staff for this program and hope that they can find better integrated approaches to the automation of fixed-income CRA tax filings so that there's no disruption on CCBs in cases like COVID. In other cases, it becomes disrupted because of lack of filing.

I certainly look forward to their coming back at future dates with some solutions to some of these challenges that we've presented, and to any comments they might have in writing.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

We will now go to our next round of questioning. It is a five-minute round, starting with Mr. Webber.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

I too would like to thank Mr. Hamilton and the CRA for a job well done here with the child benefit program and its administration. It was a great review by the AG, and I thank you for the detailed action plan that you have provided with the two recommendations of the AG and the timelines too.

I had to sneak out for a good five minutes, so I hope this question wasn't asked. I will ask it, and you can let me know.

It's with regard to one of the AG's questions on the requirement to provide a valid proof of birth for all applications. It may sound like a stupid question, but what's the purpose of that? Is it to determine the citizenship of this child, or is it to prove that there is a child in existence that they're claiming for? Is it to alleviate any type of fraud?

Then, to the CRA, apparently you will conduct a review to determine the risks associated with the requirement to provide the valid proof of birth for all applications. What risks are there to providing proof of birth?

[Bob Hamilton]

Perhaps I'll lead off on that question. I'm not sure if my colleagues will need to jump in.

In terms of determining the eligibility for the program, clearly proof of birth is a useful piece of information to have. As Frank mentioned earlier, we have an automated system in 10 provinces and one territory whereby we automatically get the information upon birth, so that's good there, but we can't always have that information from people who might come into the system a bit later, who are new to the country, etc. We are looking at how big the risk there is to us. There's obviously some risk. That's part of the study that we're going to undertake: Is there anything we can do about it if we find there is a risk?

For us to wait until we have absolute certainty and proof of that might not be the right outcome in certain circumstances, so yes, there is a risk. It's part of the eligibility criteria. We think it's manageable, but we also think, as the Auditor General has pointed out, that it's an area we can re-examine and see how our risk management is on this issue and if there is anything we can do to get greater assurances in these cases.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Okay. You say you are going to complete a review and determine the benefits and the risks involved with this proof of birth. You hope to get that done by the end of December 2021. That's eight months away. To me, that sounds like quite a long period of time to implement something like this if it's required.

I'm just curious. Why the delay?

[Bob Hamilton]

Just on that, to make sure I understand the question, you're saying that we should be able to do it more quickly than that.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Yes, those would be my thoughts, but....

[Bob Hamilton]

Perhaps things always take a little longer than people realize. We have to look at the systems and do a risk assessment of this. How many situations are out there? What's the length of time we are taking? What is really the benefit on the other side? That analysis takes time.

The only piece of context I would add is that the agency is working at full capacity at the moment, and actually at more than full capacity—

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I understand.

[Bob Hamilton]

—with all the new benefits we've introduced.

Part of what I'm trying to do as the head of the agency is make sure that we focus our attention on priority areas but that also we manage things so that we don't overcommit and end up doing some things badly.

Hopefully, we'll be able to finish it before the end of the year, but I thought that was a reasonable time frame for us to get this job done.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you for that.

Again, I apologize if this question was asked before. It's with regard to the shared custody and payments to parents.

With shared custody, each parent will get 50% of what they would have gotten if they had full custody of a child. The CRA will not split the amount using any percentages at all or give the full amount to one of the parents in a shared custody situation. What's the reason for that? Why can't you be flexible there? If one parent has a child for 75% of the time and the other 25%, why could you not split it up 75-25?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you. We have run out of time, so we need a very short answer.

[Bob Hamilton]

Madam Chair, what I would propose is that we just get back to you in writing on that following the meeting, in terms of the flexibilities we have or the lack thereof. I'm happy to commit to do that in writing. It may take a little while to explain.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Webber.

We will now go to Mr. Blois for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll join the chorus of my colleagues. We can be a critical committee sometimes with public accounts, where we're trying to hold government to account, but this is a report that is largely positive, and I'd like to commend the CRA for their work on this file.

My questions for the CRA would start with paragraph 4.23.

The Auditor General's office, as part of the audit, looked at your preliminary agents who were accepting these applications and is saying that there would be an opportunity to expand their role beyond what it is right now and add an additional layer of verification. Just simply, is that something that CRA is considering, or does it really not hit the way in which the department does its work at this point?

[Bob Hamilton]

Madam Chair, perhaps I'll turn to my colleague to answer that.

I would just say by way of opening that we always look for things to consider that would help improve things. How much improvement we could make here maybe would be something that Frank would want to comment on.