PACP meeting 11 · 2025-10-23 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts met to examine the fall 2025 Auditor General’s report on the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) contact centres. Appearing were Auditor General Karen Hogan, Commissioner Bob Hamilton, and other CRA officials.

Auditor General Karen Hogan stated that despite a new telephone system, Canadians still wait too long for answers, with only 18% of calls answered within the 15-minute service standard in 2024-25. She reported that agent responses to general individual tax questions were accurate only 17% of the time, while accuracy for account-specific questions was much higher. Hogan also found that the CRA placed greater importance on agents adhering to their schedules than on the accuracy and completeness of information, which she said does not encourage a strong commitment to quality service.

Commissioner Bob Hamilton accepted the audit’s findings and outlined a 100-day service improvement plan focused on increasing call-answering capacity, expanding online self-service options, addressing root causes of service issues, and accelerating modernization. He noted that the CRA is now answering over 70% of calls and highlighted that in the 80% of calls that are account-specific, the agency’s own quality assurance program found a 94% accuracy rate. Hamilton acknowledged the 17% accuracy finding for general calls was concerning and said the agency is working to improve training and refocus its quality assurance criteria on accuracy and completeness.

Assistant Commissioner Melanie Serjak explained that the CRA evaluates over 130,000 calls per year and that accuracy accounts for 15.75% of an agent’s performance rating, with authentication also weighted heavily for security. She said the agency is expanding its GenAI chatbot to cover more topics and is working with Shared Services Canada on a new cloud-based contact centre platform. Serjak also noted that when call volumes exceed capacity, callers are deflected to automated self-serve options after 30 minutes to avoid longer waits, and she committed to providing a written clarification on the deflection process.

During the meeting, the committee adopted a motion to invite the Minister of Finance and National Revenue and the Secretary of State for the Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions to appear and provide an update on the 100-day plan.

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Witnesses · 5

Karen Hogan

Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General

Opening remarks

Good morning, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to discuss our report on Canada Revenue Agency's contact centres, which was tabled earlier this week. I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. As part of our audit, we examined whether the Canada Revenue Agency’s communication centres provided Canadians with accurate and timely information about their personal taxes, benefits, and business taxes. The Canada Revenue Agency has a duty to help individuals and businesses meet their tax obligations and claim benefits. I am concerned that, despite a new telephone system and other improvements, Canadians are still waiting too long for answers to their tax questions. The agency’s service standard was to answer 65% of calls in 15 minutes or less. In 2024-25, callers who chose to speak to an agent waited an average of about 31 minutes, and only 18% of them were able to reach an agent within the standard time frame. In addition, callers did not receive real-time updates on their position in the queue, which limited their ability to properly assess whether it…

Full testimony ↗

Bob Hamilton

Commissioner of Revenue and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Revenue Agency

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to present on behalf of the Canada Revenue Agency our actions in response to the Auditor General’s audit. Let me say right at the outset that we accept the findings and recommendations in the audit. We acknowledge the importance of delivering quality and timely service to Canadians. With nearly 200 million service transactions annually, obviously service delivery is central to our mandate. In this regard, I just want to say how much we appreciate the efforts of all our employees, including contact centre agents, in their commitment and dedication to delivering that service, in some cases in very challenging circumstances. We are committed to supporting them and to providing better tools for them to be able to carry out their mission as we see technology and other processes evolve. To address the Auditor General’s recommendations, the agency is building on its 100-day service improvement plan. This plan is structured around four key pillars: increasing the ability to answer more calls; expanding online self-service options; addressing root causes of service issues; and accelerating service modernization. Pillars one and two…