Public Accounts Committee on May 4th, 2021

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

Comment quickly if possible. Thank you.

[Frank Vermaeten]

Very briefly, the agents here are primarily putting in the data. They are doing data entry, and based on the data that's in the system, the IT system then says that everything is there and that therefore this individual is entitled.

They do exercise some judgment when there are some questions on some of the documentation, and at this point, for the most part, we feel this time is adequate. They do have flexibility with regard to the amount of time they take. On average it is five minutes, but some cases obviously take longer.

We are going to look at this again to see whether there are opportunities to get the balance a little better.

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

Just building on that, Mr. Vermaeten, while I have you here, these applications that the agents are receiving, I presume, are applications outside of the provincial information on births that is sent to you. Is that indeed the case?

[Frank Vermaeten]

It is.

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

Okay. Talk to me about the information, because of course there are broader conversations going on right now about the information sharing between provinces and territories and the federal government around health care writ large, given the fact that we're in a pandemic.

Is the information that you receive from the provinces and territories generally all in the same standard form, or does each province or territory have a bit of a different way in which they send that information to the federal government?

[Frank Vermaeten]

Generally speaking, it's very similar across provinces and the one territory. We're working with the two other territories that aren't part of this to try to put in place those systems and the information-sharing agreements to get the right information so we can be confident of giving individual CCB if the hospital provides us this information.

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

Just because I am curious, can you tell me if all of that information is being sent to the Government of Canada in digital form, or it is in paper form? How does that actually come to you?

[Frank Vermaeten]

Generally it's in a secure digital form.

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

Perfect.

I want to move to the late filing issue. I know Mr. Green had conversations around this.

The Auditor General's Report simply says that if an individual has not filed a tax return in the given year, they won't receive the benefit. For example, in 2020-21 we look back to your 2019 tax year. Is there any recourse for individuals who may have late filings, or is it just simply that if you don't file, you don't receive your benefit?

[Frank Vermaeten]

Madam Chair, if I may answer, it is not use it or lose it. If you're late in filing, you just get your CCB later, so as long as an individual does file, he or she will get those amounts going back up to 10 years.

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

Okay. I appreciate that.

I want to go back to Mr. Lawrence's line of questioning. He talked about new Canadians, and we recognize that 50% are still coming from family situations that are always changing. I think we can all appreciate that. Some are individuals who weren't born in the country.

I'll go back to this. Is there room for us to find efficiencies whereby information is shared with other departments that we can blend into the work you are doing? To me, what Mr. Lawrence raised was very valid. The conversation was around organizations in the non-profit sector doing a lot of work, but would IRCC not have a lot of this information that could be shared with CRA?

[Frank Vermaeten]

There is definitely room for improvement, and as a matter of fact we are speaking to IRCC right now and trying to figure out what kind of information sharing would be possible and what could be automated, with a view to helping people as much as possible to get the benefits they are entitled to.

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

Right. Thank you so much.

Thank you for all of your work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

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

We will now move 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.

Mr. Dompierre, in your remarks, you said that the Canada Revenue Agency doesn't always have the most up-to-date information to determine eligibility and conduct the necessary checks or to calculate the benefit amount.

In your opinion, in terms of public spending, would it be beneficial to increase the number of first-level agents so that they can take more time during an initial assessment and more easily identify ineligible people?

[Philippe Le Goff]

Given that Mr. Dompierre is having technical issues, I'll answer the question.

In the report, we emphasized the attentiveness of many first-level agents. We found that certain practices should be formalized.

This is a question for the agency. It concerns staff management.

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

Thank you, Mr. Le Goff.

My next question is for Mr. Hamilton from the Canada Revenue Agency.

Mr. Hamilton, according to the Office of the Auditor General's report, with more time to process benefit applications, first-level agents could better verify the information provided. For example, they could check whether another child associated with the same parents had been born within the previous nine months.

Has the agency ever assessed the additional costs of increased checks by first-level agents versus the potential savings resulting from the identification of ineligible people at the outset?

[Bob Hamilton]

I'll provide a fairly brief answer.

The agency is paying close attention to this issue. It should be noted that, in some circumstances, the information isn't accessible. That's why Mr. Vermaeten referred to the importance of co-operation between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency, for example.

This is important to us. This isn't just about the amount of time spent by the agent at the start of the process. This is also about access to information and having an automated system in place that can provide the information when it changes.

One challenge is that, from time to time, if the relationship between the two parents changes, there's a delay between the payments and when we receive the information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

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

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm going to open this up for Mr. Hamilton.

Mr. Hamilton, have any questions been asked in the course of testimony that you want a chance to follow up on and fully explain in a better way?

[Bob Hamilton]

I think not. I think we've touched on the main issues.

I suppose I could say one thing. Although committee members have been very gracious with their appreciation for the good work of the agency, of which I'm tremendously proud, we've tended to focus on the areas for improvement. This is really important, and we have an action plan, but just remember that for the most part this program works extremely well. We have some things we can improve upon in terms of the timeliness of information, but I think we've hit on mostly the right points here.

I've gone over each of the points on the action plan, so I don't think anything has been missed, other than just to make sure that we don't get too focused on the areas for improvement and lose sight of the benefits, which I think the committee has done a good job of doing.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You'll be happy to know that the Liberal government always does a good job of touting the things that go well within their programs, so there is no doubt in my mind that we'll hear about this in many House of Commons interventions, press releases and departmental communications. I think that's great.

I'll share with you in closing that for this committee to have unanimous overwhelming support for a report is not always the case. Consider yourself well praised within the context of this committee.

Those are all the comments I have for this intervention. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

We will now go to our last round of questioning. It is a five-minute round.

We will start with Mr. Lawrence.

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

Thank you very much.

I'll start off by agreeing with you, Mr. Hamilton, that this program is extremely well administered. It is a credit to you and all the CRA agents out there.

I have some questions with respect to a line of questioning brought up by some of my other colleagues.

A large number of people are not receiving this benefit and other benefits because they don't file their tax returns. We've made great progress here, as 90% of people file online, but let's face it: The Income Tax Act is incredibly complicated. I don't know exactly how many pages are in there, and maybe you do, Mr. Hamilton, but it's thousands. It's very complicated.

Now, let's compare ourselves with other places in the world, like, for example, Estonia. In Estonia, the income tax system is much simpler, and 98% of people do taxes online. You can do them in three to five minutes on average. In fact, for some people it's not unusual to do them in one click.

Do you believe that simplifying the Income Tax Act would make your job at the CRA easier?

[Bob Hamilton]

I can't deny that, even though it's not my responsibility to simplify the act. I did work in the Department of Finance for a while and I do believe that if the act was simplified, it would make our job easier.

Now, making our job easier is not the sole objective of the Income Tax Act, but if you're asking from my perspective, yes, simplification would make CRA's job easier and frankly, it would make our job easier in explaining to Canadians what the system looks like and what the benefits are.

As I said, that's not the only concern that someone has when constructing a tax system, but yes, it would make our job easier. What we try to do is make sure that we have clear and consistent communication, no matter the complexity of the act and no matter the complexity of the particular family situation we're dealing with.