Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we would have identified—

Public Accounts committee  I maybe would ask my colleagues to expand on it, but we have filed a progress report with the committee. We're examining, as we go, what we see and what it tells us—through our business intelligence and other models—about where we need to look next and where we need to look after that.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I wouldn't interpret it that way at all. We're actually moving towards the same goal. We both want to have effective compliance to ensure that Canadians have a fair tax system or benefit system at their disposal. Where we might differ is on how valuable that monthly GST data is and then going to the $15.5 billion with respect to determining our compliance efforts.

Public Accounts committee  Well, I think it was the government's decision, and it was set out in the legislation that was put forward.

Public Accounts committee  As you're sitting around that table, you would always expect the administrator to try to make it as tight as possible. You would expect that, but we're also all human beings, and we all understood the situation and the need to get the money out. We felt as though it was an appropriate balancing.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I would say that we are. I would always say that with more resources you could do more, and you referenced the numbers for uncollected debt. There are always more things we could do if we had more resources, but in this context right here, I think we were resourced appropriately for the task.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, first I would say that we are trying to change people's impressions to see the CRA as being a bit more service-oriented, but that's a journey. On the issue of whether we should be worried about it, I think we are doing the work that's necessary to uncover where there are risks and where money went to ineligible people.

Public Accounts committee  First, I don't entirely agree that Canada is behind other countries. It's true that it's very early in the process. We're going to continue the audit process until 2025. That will give us plenty of time to complete the audit process. That's why I said that it's a little too early to give an estimate of the final amount.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I would say there's obviously an opportunity cost to everything—if you do more of one thing, you're going to have to do less of another—but I don't characterize this as an issue of resources from the CRA's perspective. We were given the resources to carry out a compliance program consistent with what you would see in international best practices.

Public Accounts committee  First off, in terms of the prepayment controls on the wage subsidy, yes, we did have some. Could there have been more? Sure. It was what it was, and we tried to adjust it as time went on. The other thing we did at the beginning to try to make it more accessible was we had a lot of outreach with businesses—CFIB and others.

Public Accounts committee  If you looked at a program and said you were going to put out 15% of the money to ineligible people, that would be high.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I think you have to recognize that as the pandemic went on, there were adjustments made to the compliance program and to different controls brought in place to try to make sure that we learned from what was going on. We put more controls in place to limit the amount of money that went out.

Public Accounts committee  I would perhaps turn to my colleagues. They might have it here. If not, we'll—

Public Accounts committee  We have it, if you want it. We'll get it to you.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would certainly say there was a recognition that in going into an attestation-based approach, you were adding additional risks to the system. That was a decision that the government and others felt was a good balance. We needed to get the money out. There was definitely a recognition that this would require more compliance efforts down the road after we paid.