Public Accounts committee  Perhaps, Madam Chair, I'll take a first cut at that. You're right. Something that we consider as we look at people who owe money is what their situation is and what the situation is relative to the pandemic that's around us. What we've tried to emphasize for all of our compliance collections people is that we need to be empathetic.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. Go ahead, Ted, yes.

Public Accounts committee  Madam Chair, I think Ted would be able to provide a better answer, but he may come back to it. I think the pilot did give us some very useful information. We actually think it was an innovation that we will use to try to get more information to help future audits. I wouldn't say that we've abandoned it; I think we're using the information.

Public Accounts committee  Sure. Perhaps what I will do, Madam Chair, is just turn it over to Max Guénette, who is the head of our privacy and public affairs branch. He deals primarily with questions concerning redactions, etc., so I'll turn it over to him.

Public Accounts committee  Madam Chair, I will answer first, and then, I will ask Mr. Gallivan to provide additional information. There is no doubt that we did not have all the necessary information at the beginning. As you mentioned, some employers had still not filed their GST/HST returns. However, we had to start delivering the program and have a process in place to confirm the business's eligibility.

Public Accounts committee  At the time, we did think about whether it would be prudent to ask employers to provide employees' social insurance numbers so that we could match them up with CERB recipients. There were basically three reasons that we thought we could not do that, and you've referenced at least one of them.

Public Accounts committee  That would be fine, Ted, if you wanted to take that question. I think the general point that will apply to questions in this domain is that, as Ted said, these are not estimates but rather indications that we set up at the beginning to guide our activities. We are still in the process of receiving tax returns.

Public Accounts committee  I believe that is correct. I have the document electronically, so I'm just trying to pull up page 276. Perhaps I'll ask my colleague, Ted Gallivan, to take that on while I search for the number.

Public Accounts committee  I'll start where I left off. It's getting close to the end. Upon adoption of this motion, the CRA immediately set to work to meet the committee's expectations. I acknowledge the efforts of numerous employees across the agency, representing both a significant and a necessary time investment to perform this work within the stipulated deadline.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I am happy to be with you once again, to discuss “Report 7—Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy”, released in spring 2021 by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, or OAG. With me today are Ted Gallivan and Maxime Guénette, whom you already introduced. My focus today is on the response of the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, to the motion adopted during meeting 27 of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts related to its study on report 7.

Public Accounts committee  Should I pause?

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Madam Chair, I'll respond, I think fully, but my colleague may want to correct me. My understanding is that we have completed this review. We said we would do it by the end of March; there may be some small amounts of activity that we still have to complete, but my sense is that we're largely done with it.

Public Accounts committee  Madam Chair, I will defer to my colleagues for the technical answer. I don't know if it's Frank or Heather who would want to jump in.

Public Accounts committee  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.

Public Accounts committee  I think, as a general statement, that would be true. The simpler the tax system is, the easier it is to explain and the easier it is for people to understand how to get the benefits. One thing to recognize is that as you simplify the tax system, you might be removing some provisions that are of tremendous value to certain people, so there are lots of interesting trade-offs in all of that.