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A few weeks back I wrote about the importance of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, which plays a critical role in auditing government programs to ensure they operate as intended and deliver value for taxpayers.

I emphasized how this work brings transparency and accountability to our federal government and referenced that the Auditor General had just released two new reports. In that week’s report, I focused on the childcare audit. This week, I turn to the second report—on the Canada Revenue Agency.

I’ll begin with a spoiler. The Auditor General concluded that:

“Overall, the Canada Revenue Agency did not provide timely and accurate information to callers contacting its 8 contact centres about individual taxes, benefits, and business taxes.”

This, of course, is both disappointing and alarming. To quote the Auditor General again:

“In the 2024–25 fiscal year, the agency’s service standard was to respond to 65% of the calls within 15 minutes or less. We found that just 18% of callers reached an agent within 15 minutes or less. For the month of June 2025, only 5% of the calls met the 15 minutes or less standard. In addition, callers choosing to speak with an agent waited on average about 31 minutes, almost twice as long as they had waited a year earlier.”

It gets worse. Again quoting from the AG’s report:

“We placed 167 calls between February and May 2025 to [CRA] contact centre agents to test the accuracy of their responses to general tax questions. Agent responses to business tax or general benefits questions were accurate just over 54% of the time, while responses to general individual-tax questions were accurate only 17% of the time.”

The AG also found that:

“The Canada Revenue Agency did not provide callers with real-time updates on their queue position. This limited callers’ ability to accurately judge whether to wait, use the self-service options, or disconnect.”

Unfortunately, this poor service, paid for by taxpayers, does not come cheaply. The AG found that the contract provided by Shared Services Canada:

“Was awarded in 2015 for a minimum value of $50 million over 10 years. We found that as of June 2025, the value of the contract with amendments had reached $190 million.”

In other words, under the Liberals’ watch, taxpayers are paying more and receiving worse service that is less accurate.

In terms of staffing, according to the federal government’s own data, the total number of full-time staff working at CRA in 2015 was 40,059. As of 2025, that number has grown to 52,499—an increase of over 30%.

The Liberal Government is well aware of these problems. Back in September, they announced a “100-day Service Improvement Plan” which means they expect actions will be taken to “resolve recent service issues” by the end of the 100-day period—one month from this week, on December 11th, 2025.

This leads to my question for this week: Are you having difficulty contacting CRA?

Share your perspective on the always lively discussion on my Facebook Page or you can reach me directly at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or toll-free at 1-800-665-8711.

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Dan Albas is the Member of Parliament for the riding of Okanagan Lake West - South Kelowna, Shadow Minister for Transport and the Vice Chair of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, Dan's riding includes the communities of Kelowna (Mission, South Kelowna & East Kelowna within specific boundaries), West Kelowna, Peachland, Summerland.
You can reach Dan by calling 1-800-665-8711, emailing [email protected] or please visit: DanAlbasMP.ca
Our mailing address is:
Dan Albas MP
101-3731 Old Okanagan Hwy
West Kelowna, British Columbia V4T 0G7
Canada

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