Hon. Colin Deacon: My question is for the Government Representative. Senator Gold, tax season is upon us. New digital technologies are rapidly allowing for simple, secure, faster and more accurate processing by tax authorities. For example, the United Kingdom’s implementation of open banking and their payment initiation services have caused tax payments to be processed with zero payment errors and no increase in resources.

His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and U.K. citizens are seeing meaningful savings in both time and administrative burden when taxpayers are using open banking instead of paying by credit card, manual bank transfer or cheque. Needless to say, it also saves a huge amount of frustration. I have personally experienced that it can take up to three years for the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, to correct their own data input errors.

Senator Gold, saving time, money and frustration when paying taxes are just a few of the multitude of benefits that can result from implementing open banking. Can you please inform us as to the CRA’s ambitions on this matter and how they are preparing to deliver on the benefits that open banking can deliver to Canadians?