The CRA's online chat service, introduced to reduce call volumes to the agency's phone lines, is staffed by fewer than 100 agents.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
A new online chat offered by the Canada Revenue Agency was meant to reduce incoming calls to the agency’s phone lines. But with few agents devoted to the new service, it has become another cause of frustration for Canadians reaching out to the CRA.
The chat became available in October to Canadians using their online CRA accounts. It is meant to connect taxpayers with agents who can address questions on certain issues.
So far, however, the CRA has trained fewer than 100 of its staff to support the service, the agency told The Globe and Mail. By comparison, it deploys a work force equivalent to more than 4,000 full-time employees to operate its phone lines.
And the chat is only active from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET, a shorter time window than the call centres’ service hours.
The chat service has turned into a new source of complaints from Canadians struggling to get their tax questions answered, while long-standing concerns remain about long wait times and other issues with the CRA’s call centres, said Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson François Boileau.
One sore point, according to Mr. Boileau, is that the chat does not give users an estimate of the wait time for an agent.
“It’s not a surprise for us hearing that taxpayers are having trouble accessing the CRA’s online chat service,” Mr. Boileau said.
The chat currently offers answers generated by artificial intelligence for basic queries such as how to apply for specific benefits. Users who have more complicated issues or need personalized answers can request a live agent.
But when no one can respond – either because a user is connecting outside of operating hours or because all agents are busy – users receive a message about the chat queue being unavailable, CRA spokesperson Sylvie Branch said via e-mail.
Mr. Boileau said his office has so far refrained from making formal recommendations about improving the chat service because the agency says it is a pilot program and still under evaluation.
“The CRA is continuing to re-evaluate online chat to find the right balance between this service offering and the telephone lines,” Ms. Branch said.
However, users are given no indication that the chat service is a pilot serviced by a limited number of agents.
Contact centres, including traditional phone lines and the chat service, were the top source of complaints about the CRA received by the Office of the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson in both the 2024-25 and 2023-24 fiscal years.
In its latest annual report, tabled Friday, Mr. Boileau’s office said even when taxpayers did connect to an agent, many complained of receiving incomplete, inaccurate or unclear information.
Previously, the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson had recommended that the CRA enable users to request a call from agents online, without having to call a contact centre first. A similar service is currently available from Service Canada, Mr. Boileau said.
But the agency hasn’t so far acted on the recommendation, saying its technology cannot support this feature and that its current call-handling system is due for replacement, Mr. Boileau said.
Currently, the CRA offers a callback feature for some inquiry phone lines “when certain conditions are met,” agency spokesperson Nina Ioussoupova said.
She said the CRA has taken steps to boost call-service performance in recent years. These have included introducing authentication passcodes to replace standard authentication procedures in an effort to reduce average call times.
Besides the chat service, the CRA has also rolled out a digital documentation verification service and an AI-powered chatbot to help reduce the need for phone calls, Ms. Ioussoupova added.
Still, call centres continue to be a source of public scrutiny for the CRA. Eight years after warning that taxpayers faced excessive wait times and often unreliable information from the CRA’s phone lines, Auditor-General Karen Hogan is conducting a new review of the agency’s call centres.
A new report will be available later this year, Ms. Hogan’s office said.
