00:01:19.780And my goodness, you have your work cut out for you because this is an agency that's had problems for quite a number of years.
00:01:27.520And just by the volume of work in, say, my constituency office or yours or many others, Canada Revenue Agency seems to be a department that constituents are having to reach out to their members of parliament for help with, in my opinion, just in my office.
00:01:46.900I think you're right. After, you know, in our offices across the country, I think immigration is the number one thing that people contact us for in almost all ridings.
00:01:56.640The number two is between CRA and Service Canada. And those are very, very specific issues that they end up having.
00:02:04.600And some of them are very complicated. And, you know, just from the volume of CRA cases that we're seeing increase in our own offices, it's a disaster.
00:02:15.180So it matches with what people are saying, but also the numbers that came out in the Auditor General's report.
00:02:22.520So this was an Auditor General's report about a year or so ago, give or take, and basically showed some issues with the CRA and where they could improve, I think, was the main one.
00:02:36.180So I think the stat that jumps out at me is this one here, that only 17% of the time, the Auditor General called the CRA asking questions that the right answer was given.
00:02:50.120That's, I think, an area we could see improvement on very, very easily.
00:02:57.480Yeah, you know, it falls in line with the track record of this government being, you know, the incompetence in this liberal government carries off on to the rest of the departments.
00:03:08.640And we're seeing that with the number 17% is an absolute collapse in service standards.
00:03:15.060If any private company had those kind of numbers, there would be a lot of people being fired.
00:03:20.560But more importantly, I think that the company would not last if that's the kind of advice that they're trying to give to people.
00:03:27.480The biggest problem with that is people will take the CRA's word as it is.
00:03:33.560They are still the ones that are responsible once they follow that advice.
00:03:37.380If they file their papers wrong, it still falls on them.
00:03:41.160And so they will be, you know, CRA, the way it works is that Canadians are expected to pay their taxes on time.
00:03:48.120And if they don't, CRA comes after them.
00:03:50.780Now, if the CRA is giving them the wrong information and they're following that advice and filing their papers wrong, they're going to get the CRA after them by the CRA's advice.
00:04:03.660And then they'll be fine on top of that.
00:04:07.220And then it accumulates interest as they wait for a decision sometimes.
00:04:11.360And sometimes that decision can be a year to three years long.
00:04:15.260And so that's accumulated interest for something that they had asked the CRA in the first place.
00:04:20.380So this is the kind of incompetency that we're seeing from the government, who in February of this year was claiming victory that they fixed it.
00:04:29.420They said they had a 100-day plan after the Auditor General's report, and then they said they fixed it all.
00:04:34.640But then a few months after that, the taxpayer ombudsman is now opening up two separate investigations, saying that things, because of the amount of complaints that went up.
00:04:46.040Yeah. Well, let's hear from the Auditor General herself.
00:06:13.780we're going to be changing this model of our business
00:06:15.800or we're going to be doing other things or exploring other things to do.
00:06:20.740Sometimes you need that information to even move forward.
00:06:23.620But the people who are getting hounded by the CRA for problems that, you know,
00:06:28.140the CRA themselves have created, that makes it even worse.
00:06:31.580Whether you're an individual, seniors I feel really bad for,
00:06:35.020those are the ones that really come into our offices with their hands up in the air.0.80
00:06:39.360People who apply for disability tax credits, their hands go up in the air.
00:06:43.500These are the people that end up getting affected. And then there's businesses and charities who it just seems like there's always just a, you know, an onslaught of the CRA just nonstop hounding them.
00:06:56.240At the end of the day, this costs money. It costs time for people.
00:07:00.540And the amount of stress that the CRA causes, all because the liberals have created so much incompetency all across, uncertainty everywhere.
00:07:08.660to the fact that there's so many more CRA agents now, but the service standards have gone down.
00:07:16.120Like Canadians pay their taxes, rightfully so.
00:07:19.120They expect services for those taxes and accurate information,
00:07:23.080which under the Liberals, the CRA has collapsed when it comes to giving that kind of information.
00:07:28.040And that's the kind of thing that I think really wears on people.
00:10:01.340And, you know, we saw that during different times ever since I've been elected, where there will be a single mom that has to wait sometimes hours on the phone.
00:10:10.300And she'll be trying to take care of two kids, trying to get a CRA issue sorted out that wasn't her problem in the first place.
00:10:16.580It was an inaccuracy or inefficiency that happened from the CRA.
00:10:20.600But she's getting stuck with not just being on the phone while she's trying to take care of her kids, but also with the bill at the end of the day, which is very unfair.
00:10:30.960It almost feels like, you know, Canadians are definitely not getting what they're paying for in their taxes and services from the government.
00:10:37.060But they are, it's like almost like an attack over and over again.
00:10:41.000You know, Justin Trudeau, and this goes to the liberal thinking when he said that, you know, business owners are tax cheats.
00:10:46.940You know, and so that's how it feels like the Liberals are treating Canadians the same way, whether you're a charity, a faith-based charity, whether you're a business or you're a senior.
00:10:57.580This is what everyday Canadians are feeling from this incompetent Liberal government.
00:11:02.680You don't need to be sitting on hold for hours and hours.
00:11:06.260Then you have business people trying to do what they do best, right?
00:11:08.840Like, especially if you're a small business, you're fighting against competition from the big ones.
00:11:13.460Plus, you have government coming down on you.
00:11:16.000like you don't have a lot of time to deal with this. And the stress is just unnecessary. There's
00:11:23.880ways I think the government can be more efficient. We have a few graphics here that we should,
00:11:27.380I don't know if you want to respond to this, but that's what you're talking about earlier.
00:11:31.320Fixing up the issues with CRA, that's come and gone. Look at the date. We highlighted that for
00:11:36.920you, 2025, 100 days, long past not fixing it. And then of course, the tax code. I think
00:11:42.780even accountants are frustrated that taxes are so complicated. That's right. So, you know,
00:11:47.960I'll just say that under Pierre Polyev, we have a plan. We want to make our taxes or Canadians1.00
00:11:54.820taxes lower, simpler, and fair. We are going to change. We are going to, you know, take the bold1.00
00:12:00.580step of creating a task force for taxes all by themselves, whether it's, you know, corporate tax,
00:12:07.860business tax, individual tax. We're going to make it, like I said, simpler, fair,
00:12:13.860and we're going to make sure that we end lower. That's going to help not just make things a little
00:12:20.360bit more efficient, but also it'll make it less expensive for businesses, for families,
00:12:27.100and that's what they deserve. Under the Liberals now, look at a family's household taxes can take0.62
00:12:33.700up almost 50% or even more of their paycheck for the year. That is ridiculous that there's been
00:12:41.040more spent on taxes than there are on food, clothing, and shelter combined. And that's what
00:12:47.380the Liberal track record is. So we want to reverse that. That's what we would do. We would actually
00:12:52.540have a plan, not like this fake 100-day plan that the Liberals obviously failed at. That's why the
00:12:59.500a taxpayer ombudsman has more complaints now and launched two of their own investigations
00:13:04.940based on the 100-day plan that failed by the Liberals. We will actually get it done. We will
00:13:10.060have a task force ready to go whenever Pierre Polyev becomes Prime Minister. Absolutely. We
00:13:15.140can't wait for that day soon enough. But even, you know, accountants are frustrated. Tax forms
00:13:19.740used to be fairly simple. And over the decades, it's just gotten worse and worse and worse. And
00:13:25.460And so when an individual is trying to navigate all this, it's important that you get the correct information when you have to call CRA more than 18% of the time.