Voyageur 36
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
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CRA Backlogs Are Getting Worse - And Interest Keeps Piling Up
Tax season is approaching, and the Canada Revenue Agency has some bad news: it's still drowning in backlog. The agency is warning that several services - including disputes, tax adjustments, and requests to waive penalties - are likely to see delays. Some taxpayers say they’ve been waiting more than 10 months for the CRA to fix its own errors, watching interest charges pile up on incorrect penalties the whole time. One Nova Scotia man filed a request to waive a $3,471 penalty in March 2025 after his adviser determined the CRA had accidentally doubled one of his income slips. He's still waiting. The penalty has grown to $3,836. The CRA blames growing demand, but the union representing CRA workers wants to bring everyone’s attention to the 11,000 agency job cuts since March 2024. Those cuts are now being partially reversed, but whether it's enough for the agency to get itself out of the hole remains to be seen.
Read more: CBC Go Public
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Half of Canadians Can't See a Family Doctor When They Need One
Thinking about moving back to Canada? You might want to line up a doctor first. New data from the Angus Reid Institute shows that 50 per cent of Canadians either don't have a family doctor or struggle to see the one they have - up from 40 per cent a decade ago. One in eight Canadians has been searching for a GP for more than a year, or has simply given up. The numbers vary by province but the trend is consistent: worse everywhere than 2015. Saskatchewan is hardest hit with 63 per cent facing difficult or no access. Among Canadians who needed care in the past six months, 56 per cent had trouble seeing a specialist and 52 per cent struggled with emergency care. Three in five aren't confident they could get timely care if they had an emergency. Health spending has nearly doubled since 2015 - from $219 billion to $399 billion - but outcomes have gotten worse.
Read more: Angus Reid Institute