1 day Ago By Brandon Sun
Waste, fraud, abuse and lies. This story has all four, and it has likely cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Read this article for free: Already have an account? As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed.
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Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion Waste, fraud, abuse and lies. This story has all four, and it has likely cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Three weeks ago, the CBC reported that an investigation by “The Fifth Estate” and Radio-Canada had found that the Canada Revenue Agency had discovered during this year’s tax season that hackers had obtained confidential taxpayer data used by one of the country’s largest tax preparation firms.
The report revealed that the hackers had used that data to gain unauthorized access into hundreds of Canadians’ personal CRA accounts, changed direct deposit information, submitted false returns and fraudulently received more than $6 million in fraud-induced refunds. The CRA was unable to identify the hackers, but concluded that the scam was not caused by a breach of its own systems or insider involvement. Despite the size of the attack and the implications it had for the privacy and financial interests of the affected taxpayers, the public was never alerted to what had happened.
The CRA’s silence in response to that particular situation is troubling, but it is far from the exception. “The Fifth Estate” and Radio-Canada also found that the incident was just one of many similar incidents that have occurred at the CRA, and that the public is not being told about the massive amounts of money involved, nor is it being informed of the agency’s apparent inability to detect and prevent such fraudulent activity. Indeed, the CRA has admitted that there have been more than 31,468 “material” privacy breaches from March 2020 to December of last year, affecting more than 62,000 individual taxpayers.
Given the severity of the problem, it is disturbing that the CRA only reported those breaches to the Privacy Commissioner retroactively, and only after the CBC began asking questions. Even more troubling is the fact that it was only then that the CRA admitted it had mistakenly authorized more than $190 million in bogus payments connected to “confirmed” cases of privacy breaches between 2020 and early October of this year. Those occurrences appear to be far from isolated instances.
In November of last year, it was reported that the CRA had paid out $63 million in a “sham” tax refund scheme. In April of this year, it was reported that the agency had allegedly been tricked into paying $37 million in tax refunds. In fact, sources told “The Fifth Estate” and Radio-Canada that the figures provided to date by the CRA only represent improper refunds based on personal tax returns.
They claim the amount would climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars if bogus refunds relating to business and GST accounts are also included. In response to such incidents, Canadians would reasonably expect the CRA and its political masters, the Trudeau government, to be transparent with Canadians about what has happened, and assure us that all necessary steps are being taken to prevent such incidents from happening in the future. Instead, Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said three weeks ago that “Fraud is obviously unacceptable, but I believe that the agency has a robust system.
” She added that “The CRA’s systems are solid. We are able to deal with and block attempts at fraud, inform those affected and ensure the necessary followup.” Those statements are not merely misleading; they are simply false.
Worse still, however, are reports that the CRA is currently attempting to identify the whistleblowers inside the agency who spoke to the media and exposed the true scale of the bogus payout problem. Canadians only know about the illicit payouts because of their courage to tell us what the government would not. This situation has all the hallmarks of a scandal: massive amounts of taxpayer dollars missing, a lack of transparency, misleading information and a ham-handed attempt to contain the story.
Given the staggering amount of money involved and thousands of Canadians who may have had their privacy breached, it is surprising that the public remains largely unaware of what has happened. That must change; the silence and obfuscation must stop. Minister Bibeau, senior CRA officials and perhaps even the privacy commission must be called before the appropriate House of Commons committee in order to have them be frank about the nature of the problem, what caused it, how much money is missing, how many Canadians’ CRA accounts have been impacted, and what steps are being taken to ensure such abuses never occur again.
Whether that happens remains to be seen. Until that happens, however, Canadians have a legitimate reason to be skeptical about the leadership, competence and transparency of the Trudeau government generally, and the Canada Revenue Agency in particular. Advertisement Advertisement.
