IN TOUCH WITH MP EARL DREESHEN

November 24, 2017

I hope everyone is enjoying this brief reprieve from winter before it settles in for good. We have seen an eventful few weeks in Ottawa and I wanted to provide an update on some of the most recent news.

ISIS Fighters Returning to Canada – Not Being Tracked

This week we saw the revelation that ISIS fighters who are returning to Canada have been tagged for “reintegration” by the Liberal Government. A stark contrast to what other countries are doing with these people who took up arms to fight alongside and in many cases join in terrorism, sex slavery, and so much more.

Further revelations revealed that the number of returning ISIS fighters (60) is a number that is two years old because the Liberals haven’t bothered tracking them. The government currently has no idea how many of these tourist terrorists are back in Canada.

This is completely unacceptable – and we will continue to push the Justin Trudeau and the government to treat our national security seriously.

CRA – Customer Service???

Also this week, stemming from an Auditor General investigation it was revealed that between March 2016 and March 2017, the CRA call centre blocked 29 million taxpayers from reaching a CRA agent. This represents well over half of the people who tried to connect with the agency. This is the result of some misguided attempt to say they answer 90% of calls within 2 minutes. They simply don’t count those who are hung up on as callers.

In addition, of those people who do eventually get through – 30% are given wrong information.

These numbers are hard to believe and sound made up. We have been hearing antidotal evidence for months on the difficulties in getting through – but, it is hard to believe the issue was this extreme. We need the Liberals to seriously look at how they serve tax payers who are just trying to follow the rules.

As the Liberals turn their focus onto compliance (audits), do not expect these issues to improve. Audits take a great deal of time and energy from the department, so those trying to get through get pushed further down the priority list. But more importantly, this is creating additional time and administrative burden on individuals and businesses at a time when they cannot even get answers to questions they have as they try to meet compliance requests.

Phoenix Pay Systems Fiasco Continues

The Phoenix pay system continues to be a major issue for the government. This week the Auditor General reported that it will take several more years and in excess of $540 million to fix the mess.

The Liberals are trying to push the blame for this to the previous government. While the Conservative Government was working on the new system previously – it was the Liberals who pushed it out before it was ready. It is the Liberals who have had the file for two years and shown little to no improvement while people’s lives have been turned upside down.

It is amazing that a government that seems to want to get involved in the marijuana trade, housing, and a whole host of ever expanding government programs (while downloading actual costs and responsibilities onto provinces and municipalities) – can’t even figure out how to pay their employees every two weeks.

This group is completely out of touch with Canadians.

Sincerely your Member of Parliament,

Earl Dreeshen
Twitter: @earl_dreeshen
Facebook: @EarlDreeshenMP