Ottawa sets 100-day timeline to fix CRA call centre delays

OTTAWA — The federal finance minister said Tuesday he wants to address service delays at the Canada Revenue Agency within 100 days, even as Ottawa plans spending cuts across the public service.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne set the timeline in a letter to Liberal MP Karina Gould, chair of the House of Commons finance committee, which was posted to his X account Tuesday morning.

In that letter, he said it’s “increasingly apparent” the CRA is not meeting Canadians’ standards.

“The service delays and access challenges Canadians are experiencing from CRA call centres are unacceptable,” he wrote.

Gord Johns, an NDP MP in British Columbia, wrote his own letter to Champagne dated Aug. 26 in which he shared his constituents’ complaints about the CRA’s service.

He said his constituents reported dropped calls and spending long hours on hold, and sometimes had to wait weeks for the agency to address problems.

Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson François Boileau, who is responsible for reviewing service-related complaints about the CRA, recently told The Canadian Press that his office is “swamped.”

His office’s last annual report, released in June, found roughly 24 per cent of complaints were related to issues with call centres.

In his letter, Johns said typical wait times of three to five days to resolve concerns now stretch into weeks.

“While I appreciate and value the professionalism of CRA staff, these resource shortages are resulting in unacceptable service delays for both MPs and constituents,” Johns wrote.

Champagne said he spoke to officials at the agency and asked the CRA to take concrete steps to address the issues with a 100-day action plan.

That plan could involve reallocating or adding personnel, piloting a call-scheduling system or expanding digital filing options for Canadians, he said.

The letter comes after Champagne sent letters to his fellow ministers in July asking most to find savings of 15 per cent over three years in their departments’ day-to-day spending.

The Union of Taxation Employees says wait times for Canadians calling to reach CRA agents have ballooned to as long as three and a half hours.

More than 3,000 jobs have been lost at the CRA since May of last year, the union said. It warns services will only get worse if the planned cuts materialize.

In a reply to the union, a CRA spokesperson told The Canadian Press in late August that the agency has been forced to “re-examine the size of its workforce” in response to the government’s savings initiative and the end of temporary programs like those tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The size of the CRA workforce grew during the pandemic and over the last few years, from just under 44,000 in 2019 to around 59,000 in 2024.

As of 2025, employee numbers are down to around 52,500.

The spokesperson said the CRA put a hold on converting any term employees to permanent tenure, paused student hiring and made other “workforce adjustments” over the past year.

The CRA is trying to minimize the impact on taxpayers and employees during this readjustment, the spokesperson said.

The CRA confirmed last week that it already offered extensions to 850 call centre employees whose contracts were set to expire in September.

Champagne said in his letter that he and other tax agency officials will appear at finance committee to update Parliament on the work to get the CRA back up to speed.

Parliament is set to resume on Sept. 15.

— with files from Catherine Morrison

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2025.