Dear Prime Minister,

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William Watson: Couldn’t we get Amazon or Apple to run the CRA? Back to video

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I’m writing because in my experience, if you’re having trouble with an organization, it’s always best to go directly to the person in charge, which is you, though just to be safe I’m cc’ing Mark Carney.

My problem is with the Canada Revenue Agency. (Perhaps you’ve heard that line before.) CRA is one of the 551 agencies, departments and organizations you’re in charge of, last time I looked. Yes, I agree completely: 551 is a lot. If you could get that number down, maybe the ones that remained would run better. Personally, I have trouble managing two or three things at a time, let alone 551.

My problem with CRA isn’t usual. I’m trying to find out why my taxes were lower last year than my accountant expected. Not by a lot, but by more than a few dollars. Before I found my current accountant, who is also my wife, I did my taxes myself. Though I have three advanced degrees in economics, taught public finance and taxation at university, and do read written English reasonably well, my tax assessments invariably came back with a small adjustment, sometimes up, sometimes down. Maybe if you radically simplified the income tax system, more Canadians could do their own taxes and get them right the first time? Just a suggestion.

I typically shrugged off the small differences between what I filed and what CRA assessed me, but for my accountant getting it right is a matter of professional pride. And she doesn’t want to repeat the error, if error there was, next year.

So she’s been calling CRA to try to find out what accounts for the discrepancy. And she hasn’t been able to get through. Day 1 she called four times. Each time the AI told her to try again later as all agents were busy and the telephone queue was full. Day 2, she called once: same answer. Day 3, she used the callback option on the CRA website. After an hour or two an agent did call back but the call got dropped during proof of identity. My accountant figures that when that happens it should be up to CRA to call back again: they called you in the first place, they have your number, and they presumably have a record of the pre-drop part of the call. But CRA didn’t call back.

Day 4: Two more tries: queue still full. Day 5: Ditto. As you know, prime minister, Canada has a productivity problem. How much of it, do you suppose, is from so many of us spending so much of our time trying to reach CRA?

Day 6: Success! The queue had room. She could be put on hold. And after 45 minutes, she reached an actual human agent. Unfortunately, this agent explained, something seemed to be wrong with the computers and so access to my file was not possible.

Day 7: Rise early, call at 7 a.m. and: more success! The queue was open again. But after a 57-minute wait another human agent regretted to inform us that although accounts still couldn’t be accessed computer trouble had actually been confirmed and tech specialists were working on it. Until the repairs were complete, however, and there was no telling how long that would be, it was not possible to answer questions relating to individual files. The agent did offer, however, to answer any general questions we might have.

In fact, we did have a general question, plus an observation. The general question was why the CRA voicemail couldn’t have been programmed to tell us, before we spent 57 minutes in the phone queue, that files couldn’t be opened or specific questions answered that day.

The observation was that we now understood why the voice mail, when it puts you in the queue but before it starts playing inclusive, no doubt Canadian-origin Muzak, cautions you to be respectful and polite to the agents you will be dealing with and not use abusive language. My wife and I were raised to be respectful and polite to everyone we deal with, especially those not personally responsible for any difficulties we may be having with their organization, but there are limits even to respectful and polite Canadians’ patience.

If we were dealing with a private organization that couldn’t answer the phone for a week, we obviously wouldn’t stick around. We’d switch suppliers fast. In fact, one of the amazing things about 21st-century life is how quick and easy customer relations are with organizations like Amazon and Apple — the very organizations your government, sir, has been working so hard to demonize. If you took instruction from them, CRA would answer taxpayers on the first try. In fact, could we not get Amazon or Apple to take over running CRA?

I’m sure it’s fun, sir, to swan off to New York to B-S at the “Summit of the Future” and smart-aleck with Stephen Colbert in one of the few communities — American uber-liberals — not yet weary of your sunny ways. But back here at home people’s needs are mundane and unsophisticated: they’d just like a government that answers the phone and tends to their medical needs promptly.

Dull work, no doubt. But if you can’t make it happen, we do still have choice at that 19th-century invention, the ballot box.

Sincerely,

Willliam Watson.

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