Public Accounts Committee on May 4th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you, Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.

We will now go to our next round of questioning, starting with Mr. Lawrence for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First off, I would join my colleagues in congratulating you, Mr. Hamilton, and your team, on I would say an A+ report from the Auditor General. Well done.

My questions will be to you, Mr. Hamilton, and maybe some of your team for support.

I am curious. We have the automated benefit applications, which I think I heard someone say catches 97% of newborns. However, we still have 250,000 applications that are either done online or by mail-in applications. I would suspect that it is more expensive for the taxpayer, and obviously more challenging for the parents.

Could you explain why almost half of them are still a manual process, as it were?

[Bob Hamilton]

Madam Chair, maybe I'll turn to my colleague Mr. Vermaeten to respond to that question.

[Frank Vermaeten]

Thank you very much for the question.

As I said, with respect to newborns, they are automatically registered. Many of the individuals who are signing up later in the process tend to be recent immigrants, or there may have been a change in the custody situation, or perhaps a death, a divorce or a new marriage, etc.

In that case, there's really no automatic way for us to do this; we need to get information. There are applications, and individuals have various avenues, whether it's an electronic-based avenue that they can use to register or a paper-based one. We need to do that for those who aren't registered at birth.

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

Following up on that, our newcomers face all sorts of challenges, sometimes in the form of new languages, new cultures and all sorts of new paperwork that they have to get done.

Is there any way that we could tie the system into their immigration filing? I assume that a lot of this information would have to be given at the time of entry into our country. That way we're really making sure we're reaching out our hand to newcomers and not making their lives more difficult.

Would that be possible or not?

[Frank Vermaeten]

What happens now is that the immigrant support groups are really helpful in that regard, helping individuals fill out various forms for all kinds of programs, be they federal or provincial, and certainly there's a lot of attention given to the CCB, given how important it is. Automating that process with respect to information sharing on that is something we could consider. That type of information system is often challenging across departments.

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

That's something that I'm a huge proponent of. If we can invest in infrastructure to help automate these things—especially, as I said, for newcomers, with all the struggles they face coming to a new country and a new culture and potentially a new language—let's make it as easy as we can. That would be something that I would put your way.

The other area you touched upon, of what I'll call “manual” applications—although I know some of them are online—is for different custody arrangements. I'm just throwing this idea out here. I'm not saying it's a good idea or a bad idea; I just want to know whether it's possible.

As the definition of family becomes more fluid, even custody arrangements are looked at more fluidly. As opposed to sole custody or no custody, partial custody and those types of arrangements are changing. Would it be possible to have the child benefit be per individual as opposed to per family? What would be some of the downfalls and perhaps some of the positives of this, so we don't have to change this constantly when custody changes, as family breakdown, unfortunately, is more and more common in today's society?

[Frank Vermaeten]

As you are aware, and as has been discussed, we do have the female presumption rule. That is in legislation, so the way the system works right now is that it does go to one individual, but there can be situations in which amounts are split depending on the custody arrangement.

Certainly, that's possible. That's a policy decision that would have to be made by the Department of Finance. It certainly has pros and cons. I'd say generally that the female presumption rule, while there are certainly cases where that is difficult, has a lot of advantages in terms of simplicity and clarity and supporting those individuals who in the majority of cases are the primary caregivers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Vermaeten.

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

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for a very engaging discussion we're having at our committee today.

I'd like to start with Mr. Dompierre.

I noted that paragraph 4.6 of the audit mentions the United Nations sustainability goals. The Canada child benefit program supports the goal of no poverty, which is goal one of the United Nations sustainable development goals. It's the first time I can recall seeing that spelled out in terms of the United Nations goals.

In previous testimonies, we've asked about using the sustainability goals from the United Nations as part of our audit planning process. Is this something new that is appearing in the background? Is this going to be something ongoing that we should look forward to?

[Martin Dompierre]

Indeed, it will be something that will be coming up more often in our reports. The Auditor General has asked me and our teams, as we plan our audits, to put a lens on the sustainable development goals.

Equivalent as well, I just wanted to add, is a focus on gender-based analysis plus. This is also something that we are asking our teams to look into specifically. Yes, you will be seeing in the future more and more mention of those United Nations goals that Canada has agreed to.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you. That's great news and great work.

Paragraph 4.7 mentions auditing vulnerable populations and looking into that. This past weekend I was at anti-Black racism summit put on by the Guelph Black Heritage Society. One of the presenters talked about policies being developed for property-owning individuals versus non-property-owning individuals as an example of how systemic racism can leach its way into policies.

How are you looking at getting into more of a vision on vulnerable populations?

I'll start with you, Mr. Dompierre, and then go over to Mr. Hamilton. I'm interested that CRA is actually developing a lot of our social supports. Whether it's the Canada child benefit or the climate action incentive or the GIS, we're reaching into vulnerable populations through CRA, and automatic filings was one of the issues.

How would you try to define the vulnerable people in Canada and work with them?

[Martin Dompierre]

The first thing we ask the entity is whether they have conducted a GBA+ analysis. Have they looked into those vulnerable populations? Are they considering every potential population in their segment that would be benefiting from the program?

We would start to question the department in that sense. I believe there's an obligation from a program perspective that they conduct a GBA analysis.

Thank you for raising this paragraph. I wanted to jump in earlier. This is also something we had seen in the audit work that we did. We did plan for an audit to be conducted. We are currently in the process of doing that audit. We are in the process of scoping that audit. In the next year we will come back to Parliament and come back to this committee to discuss the results of these outreach activities within the government.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

Sometime we look at micro parts of policies, but we lose sight of the big picture of trying to help vulnerable people. It's tremendous that you are working in that area. I'm looking forward to seeing what that audit comes forward with.

Mr. Hamilton, in terms of the CRA, Mr. Green mentioned the volunteer tax clinics. We have many that we work with through our office as well. I really see them as leading us into supporting vulnerable people, particularly the people we're serving through those tax clinics.

Then there would be others. My name list in Guelph has a 134 homeless people on it. How do we reach those people?

CRA as an agent for social change isn't something we normally think of. Could you maybe comment on that?

[Bob Hamilton]

It is an interesting question that you raise. While people typically think of us as the tax collector—or some people do—a significant part of our activity is delivering benefits at both the federal and the provincial level.

One of the issues that we come up against, which I referenced earlier, and the Auditor General will be helping us, is how confident we can be that people are engaging with the tax and benefit system in either filing returns or claiming the benefits that they're entitled to.

We do outreach into specific communities. We've had a pilot project with indigenous communities to have a simplified tax form. As you mentioned, there's the community volunteer program, which is very effective. It had a bit of difficulty through the pandemic because of the restriction on in-person meetings, but we found a way to do some of that virtually.

We're always looking for different ways to make sure people are aware of what they're entitled to, as well as their obligations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

You're welcome.

Now we will 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.

My question is for Mr. Hamilton.

Good morning, Mr. Hamilton, and welcome to the committee. It is always a pleasure to hear from you.

I assume you listened carefully to my discussion with Mr. Dompierre. I would like to hear your comments on the female presumption concept, which the agency is currently using when paying out the Canada child benefit. It is my understanding that you accepted the Office of the Auditor General's recommendation on this.

Could you tell the committee about the process that led the agency to review its rules to ensure monitoring in this respect?

[Bob Hamilton]

That is actually a challenge for us. As we said, this is part of the Income Tax Act, and we must comply with its provisions.

Generally speaking, we focus on two aspects. On the one hand, we determine whether the rules and processes are clear for our employees, whether the employees have received the training they need and whether communication is clear enough. On the other hand, we determine whether the rules are clear for taxpayers and benefit recipients. As Mr. Vermaeten said, relationships between two parents can be complex, and rules and ways of sharing benefits must be explained very clearly to them.

That is problematic for us because, according to our philosophy, they are people first and foremost. The objective of all of our programs is to facilitate very clear communication while taking the context of the act into account.

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

Thank you for clarifying, Mr. Hamilton.

I am concerned about the accuracy and precision of information, which raised doubts in the auditor general's mind.

Can you confirm that you are certain that all the mechanisms in place will help avoid fraud? Are you certain that the Canada Revenue Agency will deal with the information provided by taxpayers fairly, that it will ensure that the amounts are paid out legitimately and that those who are tempted to profit from the benefit fraudulently will be prosecuted?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Mr. Hamilton, it will have to be a very short answer.

[Bob Hamilton]

The relationship between the two parents can sometimes change, and the agency must occasionally wait a certain amount of time to receive information on that change. We continue to improve this process in order to obtain recent information. However, there will always be processing delays.

The money can be recovered afterwards.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hamilton.

We will now go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Chair, I always appreciate your gentle hand in guiding the conversation on to the next round.

I have some real concerns about the tax filing dates and the reports we're hearing from accountants and from the voluntary tax clinics across the country.

Last year, when the tax filing deadline was extended, did you notice an impact on people receiving the CCB payments? Acknowledging that there is no extension in the foreseeable future for this extended period, do you consider that to also be a disruption in the delivery of this program?