Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, in response to that question.... This is one of the trade-offs we always face as we try to collect information to help us guide future actions. We face privacy laws, as does every other organization. We also have, within the Income Tax Act, section 241, which declares the confidentiality of information we receive.

Public Accounts committee  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.

Public Accounts committee  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.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly, Mr. Chair, part of our effort is simplifying the process as much as we can, so the person filling it out faces a simple task. We have ways of doing that. Community volunteering is one example—people can go out and actually help you file it. We have “File my Return”, where, if you're in a relatively simple tax situation, you can do it by phone.

Public Accounts committee  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.

Public Accounts committee  I think it's absolutely key. The trust that the people of the community and the hard-to-reach populations have in the government or in community organizations is really important. In the CVITP, they help us to get that trust to allow us to help them. I think the trust, though, goes beyond the CVITP.

Public Accounts committee  Again, it is a very active program for us to try to raise awareness of the tax system and the benefits that one can get through the tax system. We have a three-pillar approach. We are looking at improving financial and tax literacy through educational efforts that we provide. We are raising that awareness I spoke about, so that people recognize that filing their taxes is an important key to enabling some of the benefits to come through.

Public Accounts committee  Well, I think we—

Public Accounts committee  Sorry.

Public Accounts committee  I'll just carry on. If you want to hear from the other witnesses, let me know. I think we always try to be clear with what we are measuring. As I think the Auditor General referenced, we measure take-up based on how many people have filed. Where we have difficulty measuring is those people who haven't filed.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. Thank you. I would start by saying that the community volunteer income tax program is a very important one that we've worked on quite aggressively over the last number of years. At the core of it, it's really an effort by us to try to reach some of these people whom we might not normally be able to reach.

Public Accounts committee  I wouldn't call it a recent phenomenon. It's a challenge. I think the one thing, when you read the Auditor General's report, that we would all—

Public Accounts committee  Well, certainly since—

Public Accounts committee  I can't speak to how long it's been on the radar totally. It's been on the radar ever since I became the commissioner six years ago. I know it was on before that—

Public Accounts committee  Yes.