Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 25th, 2022

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their speeches and those who travelled to be here in person.

A good government clearly sees protecting vulnerable populations as its top priority. The natural role of government is to protect those who really need it. First you need to be able to identify those individuals and differentiate between them. We've talked about various populations. They work and live differently. They will probably require different incentives too.

I'd like to understand how well we know the vulnerable populations who have not responded or don't have access to resources right now. How do we go about identifying and collecting data about them, and then reaching out to them?

My question is for the CRA or ESDC.

[Lori MacDonald]

I can start it off.

Thank you for your question, Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné.

We've been looking at the traditional ways we've been trying to reach people to deliver benefits, and then deconstructing them to make a determination of how we find those people who aren't accessing our benefits because they're not using our traditional methods. They're not calling us; they're not coming into Service Canada centres; they're not in any databases and they're not filing taxes.

What we're looking at, and what we've been doing for the past few years, is using third party resources, such as NGOs or advocacy and help groups that are on the ground and accessing these people. We've been using them, for example, as an intermediary to connect with us, so that we can connect them with services.

We're also using outreach services across the country—not just in rural and northern areas, but also in urban centres—because this is an issue regardless of geography or where people are living.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

Are we able to estimate how many people we can't reach, other than those who didn't file a tax return? That 100% doesn't include everyone who might need it. Do we know how many vulnerable individuals don't file tax returns.

[Bob Hamilton]

One of the challenges in this field is having statistics on the overall population. We have good statistics for those who file their tax return.

However, I don't have a good estimate of the number of vulnerable individuals we are unable to reach. As Ms. MacDonald said, we're still working with Statistics Canada to figure out ways to make those estimates. We can, however, provide estimates with respect to Indigenous people.

Perhaps Ms. Pranke or Mr. Guénette have a closer estimate than I do, but I don't think so, because that's very hard to estimate. If we're unable to answer you today, I will ask the CRA to check into it.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

We'd appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Hamilton

[Gillian Pranke, Assistant Commissioner, Assessment, Benefit and Service Branch, Canada Revenue Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Hamilton is absolutely correct in that it's very challenging to identify, with any degree of certainty, how many individuals are not filing, but I'd just like to highlight two things that we've been doing.

For over five years now, for a number of years, we've been working with Statistics Canada to conduct what we call linkage studies, where we actually can discreetly link up citizens who complete the census with tax data. It's anonymized, of course. That gives us an idea as far as individuals who aren't availing themselves of benefits and credits are concerned.

For the past five years, in the Canada Revenue Agency we've been conducting what we call a non-filer benefit outreach program, where we are in touch with individuals who, according to our records, our holdings, didn't file a return, but who, according to our data, would be entitled to a benefit or a credit. They would not be in a situation where they'd owe taxes, but they're entitled to benefits.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you very much for your answer, Ms. Pranke. It's really very fascinating.

How long has the Canada Revenue Agency been doing this study in tandem with Statistics Canada?

[Gillian Pranke]

Mr. Chair, we've been conducting this study and we're in the process of conducting it a second time with Statistics Canada, based on the 2001 census. The benefit outreach program that I referred to has been going on for five years. We've issued over 1.3 million letters to citizens, which has resulted in over $40 million in refunds being generated, almost $16 million in Canada child benefit payments, and just over $17 million in GST payments. It's an important program.

One last item I'd like to—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off there. I wanted to hear all those numbers, but thank you very much.

I turn now to MP Desjarlais.

You have the floor for six minutes, sir.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the Auditor General and her office for being present today. I want to thank the witnesses, as well, who have been able to enlighten us on some of the realities facing hard-to-reach populations.

I understand how difficult this work is in light of the lack of data, and I want to focus there.

I want to make a positive mention about the efforts that have been undertaken, particularly on reserves. I had an opportunity to speak with some of the communities about some of the supports they received, allowing for intake. I think that's a good portion of this.

However, I think the gaps that are present in that framework are obvious to many folks, particularly in urban settings. When I talk about urban settings, it seems strange to think about people being unable to access services. However, we're seeing the growing number of folks struggling in urban centres. On top of that, places like Service Canada, in my city of Edmonton, haven't been open in almost two years. It's a concern for populations.

There are 3,400 houseless folks in my community. In Edmonton Griesbach, it's 3,400. In the last two years, 462 have died. When I think about hard-to-reach populations, I think about these people in my community who are unable to access these services. When I think about the work that is being undertaken, particularly in relation to recommendation 1.59 by the Auditor General's office, “To improve the integration and effectiveness of targeted outreach,” I think about those populations, my relatives in Edmonton Griesbach who are living in this reality right now.

I see that there was work related to several departments, including Employment and Social Development Canada and Indigenous Services Canada, that looked at uptake for rural and reserve settings. Was there any comparable work that's taken place to ensure that indigenous urban populations—which make up the majority of indigenous people in Canada today—had a comparable level of service, or an application to help overcome these barriers? Was there any working group in urban settings for indigenous folks?

I will ask that of the assistant deputy minister from ESDC.

[Lori MacDonald]

There are a couple of things. For clarity, all Service Canada centres are open across the country and in Edmonton. We are in the process of finalizing retraining to all of our outreach centres, where people are still looking for us to join them. Certainly, we are present and available in urban centres for accessing services.

We have been tracking a number of our benefit delivery pieces. I know your question is specific to urban centres, but I want to give you a couple of statistics. In our indigenous community, we did a significant amount of work on OAS and CPP take-up rates between 2016 and 2020. That's with respect to an earlier question about how long we have been working on this. With respect to OAS, between 2016 and 2020, we found an increase of—

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'm sorry; I have to apologize, Assistant Deputy Minister. The member will likely bring that question up again about the timing. We'll reserve that perhaps for him.

I really need an answer related to urban population consultation or support. Has it happened?

[Lori MacDonald]

Yes. We do consultation and outreach in urban centres very frequently across the country. That's not just in Edmonton, but in other major centres. We also do it with CRA and Indigenous Services Canada. We actually have working groups that work together. We also do it with provincial and territorial colleagues as well, as part of our outreach services across the country.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

To the Auditor General, when we're talking, for example, about recommendation 1.59 and looking at ways to integrate better services for this population, are you satisfied...? When you were reviewing this information, was there any evidence that there was a working group that was similar or equivalent to that working group within urban centres specifically for urban indigenous people?

This is for the Auditor General's office.

[Karen Hogan]

No, we did not see that statistic. We were encouraging both the Canada Revenue Agency and ESDC to delve into more disaggregated data. I acknowledge that it's difficult to measure uptake when you're looking at the entire population.

By definition, these people are hard to reach. You need to go into the granularity to understand the individual barriers for different types of subgroups within hard-to-reach populations in order to target your outreach. The recommendation was addressing getting to the real crux of the matter: What is the barrier for that individual group, because the majority of people are being served by normal outreach activities?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have just under a minute.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'll leave my second question and I'll try to wrap this one up quickly. It relates to recommendation 1.58.

Back to the assistant deputy minister, I hear in your words that you seem to be satisfied in some ways with the level of consultation in urban centres. I've demonstrated in my own testimony just now that this is not the case for many folks. The Auditor General has highlighted the lack of work there.

Is your department...? I see that they've agreed to this point. What plans do you have to establish a working group, especially with Indigenous Services Canada, to tackle the challenges and understand the challenges of urban indigenous community members?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Keep your answer as focused as possible, please.

[Lori MacDonald]

For clarity, we're never satisfied. We're always working to improve those services. We do outreach to communities across the country, and we're very motivated by the Auditor General's recommendation. We agree with it wholeheartedly. That's part of our action plan going forward, to put more precise working groups together to tackle those hard-to-find [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

I'll just remind members to avoid banter, particularly banter across the aisle. I gave Mr. Desjarlais a little more time there because of that, and I'm looking more at my Conservative colleagues on this than at the government side. Thank you.

Turning to our second round, Mr. Kram, it's over to you.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today, and thank you for all of your work on this very important matter.

I would like to start with Mr. Hamilton from the CRA. We've heard a couple of times now about the importance of getting people to file their income tax in the first place, because, if they don't file their income tax, we don't know that they're out there and we don't know how to help them.

Mr. Hamilton, can you give us a breakdown about how Canadians file their income tax these days? Is it mostly online? Is it mostly driving down to H&R Block? Is it mailing in the paper forms? How does it happen?

[Bob Hamilton]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a mix, certainly, and we do try to tailor our services so that people can use the channel of their choice. Predominantly, over 90% of tax returns are filed electronically, based on last year. I forget the exact number, but let's say it's 92%—something like that.

If you're looking at individuals, a large portion of them, over 50%, go to tax preparers. Others use software that's available on the market, and then the balance.... We have a service called “File my Return”, which is particularly helpful for this group. You can use it to file by phone, and we're expanding that. A million or so people use paper forms, and we mail the forms out to them to make it easier. That's how people file their tax returns.

I think one of the focal points, and my final point, is that we're trying to make that process as easy as possible for people. From a system perspective, it's obviously better for us if it's filed electronically, but we're trying to make sure that we're accommodating how people want to file their returns.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

That's 90% or 92% for the general population. Is it a similar figure for these hard-to-reach populations, or have you noticed an uptick in different ways among these hard-to-reach populations?

[Bob Hamilton]

I don't have a specific figure on what it is for the hard-to-reach populations. We would be talking about people who are hard to reach but who still file. I think that is the premise of your question.

There would be another bunch of people who are hard to reach and whom we haven't been able to get access to, but probably less of a percentage would be in electronic form. Unless Gillian has a specific statistic, I'd have to get back to you with the breakdown that we have.