If a certain five-year-old recommendation to improve call centre service at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is implemented, taxpayers will have the option to request a call back from the agency — and thereby avoid being put on hold.
On Tuesday, the finance minister asked the CRA to implement a 100-day plan to fix its contact centre delays, following complaints that wait times to resolve taxpayer concerns can stretch into weeks.
A “new surge” in complaints to the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson as well as current media coverage made clear that the public is frustrated and disappointed with the CRA’s service — especially contact centres, the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson, François Boileau, said in a release on Wednesday.
Boileau said the office’s 2020–21 annual report recommended that CRA allow taxpayers to request a call back, without the need to first call a contact centre. But in 2024, the CRA had said it decided not to pursue the recommendation, because of technical limitations and costs.
“I was pleasantly surprised that the 100-day plan includes a new call-scheduling system,” Boileau said in the release. “I still believe that such a system would greatly benefit taxpayers.”
The Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson monitors issues with the CRA’s service and recommends improvements, and complaints about contact centres tend to be one of the top complaint trends each year.
A 2017 report from the auditor general found that CRA call agents provided wrong information almost 30% of the time. In that report, the agency committed to measures such as training and monitoring agents.
Yet in the latest annual report of the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson (2024–25), the top trend in complaints relates to information provided by contact centre agents. Information was incomplete, inaccurate or unclear — if taxpayers were able to get through to the contact centre in the first place.
Between 2014 and 2024, CRA head count grew nearly 47% to about 59,000, including staff increases during the pandemic. As of March 31, staff count was 52,499.
Boileau said he looks forward to meeting with the finance minister to discuss the 100-day plan in greater detail.