Introduction

The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) was created in November 1999 with a promise of improved service to Canadians. To deliver on this commitment, we launched a far-reaching change agenda. It aims to take advantage of our flexibilities as an agency and implement a range of reforms to meet our mandate with better service. We believe better service strengthens our capacity to deliver on our mission: to promote compliance with Canada’s tax, trade, and border legislation and regulations through communication, quality service, and responsible enforcement, and thereby contribute to the economic and social well-being of Canadians.

“Fairness” continues to drive our core operations across all our business lines. It is a key factor in promoting compliance and maintaining the willingness of people to voluntarily comply. Thanks to the successful implementation of the CCRA’s 7-Point Plan for Fairness, this principle has steadily become entrenched in the way we deliver day-to-day service. Our commitment to fairness means we work hard to provide Canadians with the information and assistance they need to better understand and more easily meet their obligations and receive their entitlements, while taking appropriate action through responsible enforcement when people do not play by the rules, which helps ensure the system is fair for everyone. Applying the right mix of facilitation and enforcement strategies, depending on the associated level of risk, will continue to be pivotal to our approach in promoting high levels of compliance.

In terms of innovation, over the past three years we have made solid progress. Our Customs Action Plan, for example, provided the building blocks for the creation of a “smarter” border with the United States. It enabled our organization to respond swiftly to the events of September 11, 2001, in addressing new national security and anti-terrorism priorities.

We innovate for the future to address the many challenges in our operating environment and stay in step with the needs of our clients, which promotes client satisfaction. This in turn helps to sustain confidence in our operations and in the public’s willingness to voluntarily comply. Innovation also helps us establish more productive ways of doing business to reduce our internal and administrative costs, and it is critical to fully leveraging the capacity of our systems and enabling the CCRA to deliver a greater range of services on behalf of the provinces and territories to help reduce overall government cost to taxpayers.

As we enter our fourth full year of agency operations, innovation continues to underpin our change agenda. We are pursuing new ways of doing business to improve the delivery of our programs, reduce costs, minimize the compliance burden, build public confidence and respect, and deliver on our agency promise of better service. We will continue to put commitments into action with a clear and steady focus on delivering results for Canadians and value for taxpayer dollars. In so doing, we are guided by our four change objectives:

• transformation of our core business;
• human resource reform and renewal;
• administrative reform and renewal; and
• transparent management for results.

Meanwhile, we confront an expanding economy and the need to manage resultant increases in workload volumes, as well as the requirement to respond to evolving government priorities, including budget reductions and new national security requirements.

Over the past year, the CCRA has implemented a range of measures to strengthen our capacity to manage our resources and reallocate to areas of highest priority. As a result, we plan to manage the impact of an expanding economy and consequent growth in workload volumes, particularly in Tax Services, within the CCRA’s existing budget framework. We also plan to deliver on our innovation commitments, both in terms of business transformation and management reforms, within that same framework.

To do both, we will continue to exercise sound stewardship while exploring additional opportunities for resource reallocation. We have embarked on a series of horizontal reviews to reassess and reallocate resources appropriately, using an approach consistent with the government-wide review and reallocation process announced in the most recent Budget. Our aim is to use the results from these reviews to continue to make the necessary investments in our core operations, as well as in our innovation agenda.

This Summary of the Corporate Business Plan is our main management tool, used to inform decision-making on key management issues such as resource reallocation. It provides our roadmap for the next three years and details what our planned commitments are and how we will meet them to provide better service to Canadians.

The change agenda and program commitments it sets out for the planning period 2003-2004 to 2005-2006 are ambitious, especially in light of an expanding economy and the resulting growth in workload volumes. The government-wide reallocation exercise could impact the commitments we have made in Customs Services relating to national security, such as implementation of the Smart Border Declaration and the 30-Point Action Plan, the government’s Public Security and Anti-Terrorism initiative as well as elements of the Customs Action Plan. We will continue to work both internally and with the Treasury Board Secretariat to reach a funding solution on these issues.

Our goal remains moving forward with our planned commitments, but at a pace and rate that is affordable, making the right investment choices to support core operations and advance our innovation agenda across all business lines.

What We Do

The CCRA is a diverse, complex, $3 billion-plus operation that employs almost a quarter of Canada’s public service. Our mandate is to:

• collect revenues and administer tax laws for the federal government and for most provinces and territories;
• provide border services and administer international trade and travel legislation; and
• deliver various social and economic benefit programs to Canadians.

In delivering service, we touch the lives of more Canadians on a daily basis than any other organization and we are, by any stretch, this country’s largest public-sector service provider.

The following map presents a snapshot of our operations and provides some insight into the many ways we interact with Canadians, domestic and international businesses, and travellers to our country.

Financial Spending Profile

While our overall planned budget for the next three years is estimated at some $3.7 billion per year, the funds available for core operations are actually decreasing when considering the unfunded pressures that we are facing, as well as the requirement to invest in our innovation initiatives. Apart from national security requirements directly attributable to the Smart Border Declaration and the 30-Point Action Plan, the Government’s Public Security and Anti-Terrorism initiative, and accelerated elements of the Customs Action Plan, we plan to manage pressures on our core operations from increasing workload volumes and fund our innovation initiatives from within our current operating budget by reassessing and reallocating resources based on highest priority.

As noted, the recent Federal Budget announced a $1 billion budget reallocation across government departments and agencies. Although the precise financial impact of this decision on the CCRA is unknown at this time, there is potential for further reductions to our already stretched resource base. Again, we will be looking internally at our operations to identify opportunities for cost efficiency and reallocate resources where appropriate.

There may also be a need to re-examine our commitments as set out in this plan and adjust our course as required. To deal with our many funding pressures, we will work closely with the Treasury Board Secretariat to develop a longer-term funding solution—ensuring that we have the capacity to maintain the integrity of our core operations while meeting new government priorities in the area of public security.

The chart below shows how our resources for 2003-2004 are allocated across our five business lines: Customs Services, Tax Services, Benefit Programs and Other Services, Appeals, and Corporate Management and Direction. More information is provided in Appendix C.

Exhibit 1: Spending Profile by Business Line

*The amount shown for Corporate Management and Direction includes $246.0 million for information technology. Without this amount, the resources for Corporate Management and Direction would account for 15.2% of the total planned spending for the CCRA. (A total of $76.2 million is included in the first four business lines for information technology.)

Date modified:

2002-03-21