Wait times at ‘bloated and Byzantine’ CRA frustrates Canadians, B.C. MP says
wait-times-at-bloated-and-byzantine-cra-frustrates-canadians-b-c-mp-says
#Wait #times #bloated #Byzantine #CRA #frustrates #Canadians #B.C,
There is growing frustration among Canadians about service delays when calling the Canada Revenue Agency.
The minister responsible for the CRA has now given the organization 100 days to come up with a plan to address the issues.
“What we know is that when you owe the government money, they have no problem getting ahold of you,” Gord Johns, MP for Courtenay-Alberni, told Global News.
“And they’ll freeze your bank accounts, they’ll shut your business down, they’ll send their collection agents after you, and they’re gonna come after their money and they gonna get ahold you. But when you have a problem or a dispute or a concern over something to do with CRA or you need their help, you’re put on hold, often your call’s dropped, or no one answers the phone.”
Marc Brière, the national president of the Union of Taxation Employees, which represents more than 35,000 employees of the Canada Revenue Agency, said that data provided by the CRA showed that less than five per cent of calls were being answered.
“People are waiting between 30 minutes and three-and-a-half hours, but that being said, after 30 minutes, most of the time the system has directed them to an automated service, so people may get some answers to some easy questions but as soon as you want to talk about benefits or taxes or what have you, you need to call back to talk to an agent.”
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
Brière said they have heard from people who are waiting weeks or months to talk to someone at the CRA.
He added that 2,000 call centre jobs were cut in May 2023, then more in 2024 and 2025.
“We have lots of cuts across the board for the CRA for the last year, year-and-a-half.”
Brière said it is frustrating for everyone and those employees who are left are at a breaking point.
“They need more money, and they need, in my opinion, to re-hire thousands of people.”
Johns said people need to be able to go into a CRA office if they have a concern and get support and answers from the employees.
“And fix the technology issue when it comes to call speed drop,” he added. “People are on hold for hours and then their calls drop. Just completely unacceptable.”
Carson Binda, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the CRA is one of the most “bloated and Byzantine departments” in the Canadian government.
“Over the past decade, the CRA has added the second most employees out of any ministry or department in the Government of Canada. Look, clearly throwing more bureaucracy at the CRA is doing nothing to address the delays that worry taxpayers.”
Binda said the CRA is also bloated when it comes to other revenue services.
“The United States IRS has about 90,500 employees for more than 300 million Americans,” he said.
“The CRA has about 52,000 employees for 42 million Canadians. There is no reason why the CRA should be as bloated as it is and adding more bureaucracy has only added to delays for Canadian taxpayers.”
Binda said that when people need information about their finances, they deserve swift action from the CRA, not endless delays.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.