In scathing report, AG finds CRA call centres are slow to answer and often inaccurate

In a scathing new report released Tuesday, the auditor general found Canada Revenue Agency contact centres are repeatedly failing to answer calls in a timely manner — and when agents do connect to a customer, they are often providing inaccurate responses.

While the CRA has committed to answering 65 per cent of calls within 15 minutes — a standard that is already much lower than it was in the past — Auditor General Karen Hogan found that just 18 per cent were answered in that time frame in 2024-25. In June, the service offered was even worse: fewer than five per cent of calls were answered within 15 minutes.

The AG's office placed 167 test calls to the CRA between February and May of this year to assess the agency's promised response time — the average wait time to reach an agent was near