Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Thank you for this initiative and your explanation, Senator Loffreda. I would like to go into a little more detail, building on the question from Senator Patterson.

I think we all very much appreciate and believe your concern on the timeliness, but we saw with the series of payments during COVID that it was indeed the most vulnerable people who often waited the longest, and some never received what was supposed to be coming to them at all because of logistical challenges, shall we say.

It’s one thing for us to express concern. It’s another thing for a piece of legislation to demonstrate that there’s been learning from the problems in the very recent past. I haven’t heard any assurances to that regard. Can you speak to that, please?

Senator Loffreda: Thank you for the question. It’s a very important question. I raised the question in the Committee of the Whole and I raised it in the committee, and as a matter of fact, I don’t know of any progress that’s been made lately. CRA, like Minister Freeland, did express on numerous occasions that it was a question of timeliness, of simplicity — that vehicle was used because the data was there — to use CRA and to use the tax returns and filing. But I think it’s an issue that has to be tackled. If we have the problem today, it’s because the work — I always say, manage activities, you’ll get activities; manage results, you’ll get results. I was never strong on managing activities. I was always strong and wanted to manage results. The result today is that 10% of Canadians will not benefit from this tax credit. These are the Canadians who need it the most. Let’s manage the results going forward.

I also suggested in our National Finance Committee, in our Banking Committee that maybe it’s a study that has to be undertaken in the future as to what we could do better to ascertain that all Canadians can be identified. What has to be done? It’s not an answer I can give you in 30 seconds, but what I do promise is that I will put the necessary pressure that this situation be resolved in the future and a study hopefully be undertaken by one of our committees to see what else can be done to ascertain and identify that all Canadians in the future will benefit, and not as was the case, like you expressed, in the past. Thank you for your question.

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