Debates of March 28th, 2018

Indigenous Affairs

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people to respond to the questions from my hon. colleague.

Our government is absolutely committed to ending the ongoing tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. We are the first government in this country to ever step forward and recognize the need for this inquiry.

We have appointed an independent group, and that commission has a mandate that is very clear that families must be at the centre of the work that it does. We are committed to getting family members the answers that they need and that they have been waiting for about the systemic and institutional failures that have led to the murder of far too many indigenous women in our country.

We are also taking immediate action with investments in women's shelters, housing programs, and education. We are reforming the child welfare system. We are ensuring safety on the Highway of Tears. We have been moving diligently, as a government, with our indigenous partners and communities across Canada, to ensure that proper investments are being made to help eradicate this situation.

The inquiry released its interim report on November 1, 2017. The commissioners stated in their interim report that they are striving to “make stronger connections with families, survivors, and women's and Indigenous organizations, who are [their] key partners on the front line.”

The government will be responding shortly to the recommendations of the inquiry's interim report and outline further actions at that time. The Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs has also met with commissioners on several occasions, including since the interim report was released.

On the broader recommendations, the commission is right to raise these important issues, because they are all connected. The government took immediate action on these points because they produce better results for communities, lead to stronger and healthier families, and support self-determination.

We know that the families of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls must be at the heart of this inquiry. To put an end to this national tragedy once and for all, healing must be brought to the families and justice must be done for the victims.

We are all determined to do this right for the families who are impacted and many other families in this country. We are determined to honour the spirit and memory of the loved ones who have been lost. We will continue to do the work we have to do as a government to ensure that this happens.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I have heard that same speech for two and a half years. The member did not answer a single question that I asked.

Is the government going to establish a commemoration fund, as the inquiry asked for in its interim report on November 1? Is it going to provide additional funding to the Health Canada resolution support program? Is it going to establish a national police task force to reopen cold cases, as the families have asked again and again? Is it going to provide alternative administrative processes so the inquiry does not get caught up in all this Privy Council Office delay?

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission did that when Murray Sinclair insisted. This inquiry has not. We have to get specific. We are running out of time. I agree with all the member's sentiments. They are all good words, but there is no action in them.

I have asked some very specific questions, and I will keep asking them until I get an answer. We cannot keep saying “We will soon reply.” The government has been saying that since November.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly understand the frustration of the member opposite, but she needs to understand as well that this inquiry is progressing, that families are at the centre of it. Many people today are before these inquires. Many people need the support of government, in so many ways, in getting through this process.

As a government, we are acting as we go along. We are not waiting for the full inquiry to be done to make the appropriate investments and commitments. We have been doing that all along. We have been investing in shelters. We have been investing in housing. We have been investing in the reform of the child welfare system. We have been creating awareness around this issue as has never been done before in the country.

We are working with our aboriginal policing programs and indigenous governments. We are at every single table that we need to be at to ensure the success of this inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. We will continue to do that.

Canada Revenue Agency

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to follow up on a question I asked on November 22 about a very important matter for most of your constituents, and mine, and I am sure the constituents of all members of the House: the Canada Revenue Agency' call centres. This is an important matter for most people because it is tax season, and we are filing our tax returns with the CRA, which expects to receive all of the necessary information on time. In return, we expect to receive prompt answers and sometimes a cheque from the CRA.

The verdict on the CRA call centres is clear: they do not make the grade. Surely, this Auditor General's report cannot be more scathing than last year's. Just to recap briefly, the Auditor General found that when callers phoned a CRA call centre to request information on their own files, more than half of the calls were blocked. Out of 53.5 million calls, 29 million were blocked. Nearly 30 million of the 53 million calls were simply blocked. The callers were not even put on hold to wait for the next available agent. The calls were just blocked. The phone would not even ring.

The Auditor General found that when callers did manage to reach an agent, they were given wrong information 30% of the time. This means people are calling a representative of the Government of Canada for advice on their own files and getting inaccurate information 30% of the time, causing them to be misled on their own files. One would hope that when a person calls the Government of Canada to request information, the agents answering the phone will at least, in most cases, provide accurate information, but that is not the case at the Canada Revenue Agency.

Imagine if these statistics applied to a private company. Imagine a cell phone provider or Internet provider with those sorts of statistics. That company would have gone out of business a long time ago. Customers would have simply given up on a company that provided such poor customer service.

However, when it comes to the Government of Canada, there is the impression that this sort of thing is normal and that it is okay. The government is complicated. It takes far too much money to provide quality service. That is what the government is telling us again today. Four months after this issue was raised, there are still no measures in place to resolve the situation. All we are hearing are things like “we know”, “we are taking the Auditor General's report into consideration”, “we are going to do something; do not worry”, “we have a plan”, “we will find a solution“ and “we will provide better service”. Today, four months after the report was issued, there is no indication that the situation has improved.

I am asking my colleague to tell Canadians, yes or no, whether they have more than a 50% chance of reaching an agent when they call the Canada Revenue Agency and, if they do manage to reach an agent, whether they have more than a 70% chance of getting accurate information.

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to correct the record in this House and to answer my hon. colleague's question.

I would like to note how ironic it is that the NDP is once again following the Conservative Party's lead. The NDP did the same thing during the 2015 election when it chose to follow Stephen Harper's Conservatives by choosing not to invest in Canadians and their communities in favour of balancing the budget. Perhaps my colleague does not realize that many of the issues he mentions stem from a decade of indifference and cuts under the previous Conservative government.

We know what choice Canadians made in 2015. Rather than choosing the NDP, they chose a party which has shown time and time again its commitment to invest in Canadians and the government services they receive. Our government continues to fulfill that mandate. Just last Thursday we voted for hours to ensure that we could maintain the funding for the important programs Canadians rely on every single day.

Let us talk about some specifics. For starters, in budget 2016, our government invested more than $50 million over a four-year period, and in budget 2018, we invested an additional $78 million over a five-year period to improve the CRA's call centre program. This is critically important. Thanks to these investments, we have already begun the work by hiring more agents and putting into place measures to allow more callers to access agent queues, resulting in fewer busy signals and reduced call attempts.

The agency has also launched a three-point action plan to modernize its call centres. The plan is focused on modernizing technology, training call centre agents, and updating its service standards to ensure that Canadians receive the quality service they deserve.

With the over $200 million investment in budget 2018, we are making concrete improvements to the agency's services. These important investments will allow us to enhance the community volunteer income tax program, which helps Canadians complete their tax returns and access benefits such as the Canada child benefit; modernize our digital services to make life easier for Canadians who complete their tax returns online; and increase CRA's ability to automatically qualify Canadians for the benefits they deserve, such as the new Canada workers benefit.

It is extremely important for the agency to treat Canadians as important clients, not simply as taxpayers. We are working every single day to improve the services the CRA offers to Canadians.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny to hear my colleague still talking about the 2015 election in her speech and accusing me of presenting a bold, yet responsible platform. We had the courage to say that we would go after the tax revenues needed to create a platform that was both bold yet responsible. What is somewhat ironic is hearing an accusation about having presented a responsible fiscal framework. I find that quite ironic.

Getting back to today's subject, when the Canada Revenue Agency releases the results on how its call centres are performing, perhaps in the next CRA performance reports, I wonder if we will even be able to trust the figures reported in those documents. The Auditor General has said that the figures on CRA call centre performance are bear no relevance to reality and are misleading Canadians.

Has that at least been corrected?

[Kamal Khera, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government has invested more than $50 million, and will continue its investment through budget 2018 to improve the services Canadians receive from the CRA's call centre program. While we have made great strides, we recognize there is a lot of work still to do. I am committing to you, Mr. Speaker, and to my colleagues, but most importantly to Canadians, that we will continue this important work.

As we pass the midway mark of tax filing season 2018, I encourage my colleagues and all Canadians to file their taxes in order to access the credits and benefits to which they are entitled, such as the Canada child benefit.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:42 p.m.)