Monday, November 17, 2025

Call Service Disaster: The Hidden Scam Costing Canadians Millions

Call Service Disaster: The Hidden Scam Costing Canadians Millions

Call centres were supposed to help us.
A human voice.
A real solution.
A simple fix.

Instead, we’ve walked straight into a Call Service Disaster — a quietly growing national crisis, draining our time, our energy, and, shockingly, our money.

And now, with new reports and hard numbers coming out, it turns out the truth is worse than we thought.

The CRA Has Officially Failed Canadians

Canada Revenue Agency call centres are collapsing under their own weight, and the proof is now public.

According to the Auditor General of Canada (2024–2025):

Only 18% of callers reached an agent within CRA’s own 15-minute target.
The average wait time is 31 minutes.
In June 2025, only 5% of calls were answered within the standard.
Accuracy is shockingly low:
- 17% accuracy for general individual tax questions
- Just over 54% for benefit or business-related questions
Complaints about CRA call centres have risen 145% in recent years.
In July 2024 alone, CRA deflected 1.5 million callers to automated systems.
The agency’s call-centre outsourcing contracts ballooned from $50 million to $190 million.

Let that sink in:

Canadians trusted a government service.
The government quietly outsourced it.
The service became worse.
And taxpayers paid more anyway.

This isn’t a glitch.
This is a structural failure.

Telecom Workers and Customers Have Known This for Years

Every Canadian has a story:

The Rogers customer who couldn’t cancel his internet.
People stuck on hold with Bell or Telus for hours trying to dispute billing errors.
The Shaw “cancellation nightmare” era — where you needed five transfers and 90 minutes just to request a disconnection.

This isn’t customer service.
It’s corporate stonewalling.

Telecom companies deny playing games with wait times, but Canadians pay some of the highest telecom costs in the world, and service keeps getting worse.

Even with prices “declining” on paper, the reality is:

Data still averages around $7 per GB
Network access fees remain high
Regional monopolies weaken competition

And now we know something else:

Canadians lose millions of dollars in mobile data just waiting on hold.

The $18 Million Data Drain — The Cost of Waiting on Hold

Here’s the part no one talks about:

Every time you’re stuck on hold for 31 minutes with CRA or a telecom provider, and you’re on mobile data, you’re paying for it.

Using verified numbers:

CRA receives 40–55 million calls a year.
Roughly one-third of callers use mobile data.
A phone call uses about 0.8 MB per minute (VoLTE data use).
That’s 25 MB per call while stuck on hold.
At roughly $7/GB, that’s 17 cents per call wasted.

Now factor in:

Repeat calls (most people call 2–4 times per issue)
Dropped calls
Busy signals
CRA’s own number: 1.5 million deflected callers in a single month
Tax-season surges
Telecom customers stuck in similar loops

The math brings us very close to:

🔥 An estimated $18 million per year burned in wasted mobile data across Canada.

Money that goes straight into telecom pockets — simply for making Canadians wait.

This is not an accident.
This is a business model.

Who Is Holding Them Accountable?

If an ordinary worker ignored calls like this, they’d be fired.
If a small business treated customers this way, they’d shut down.

But telecom giants?
Government agencies?
They shrug.

Canadians pay more, wait longer, and get less.

This is exactly why it’s time for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to step in and uncover:

Why Canadians pay among the highest telecom fees in the developed world
Why customer service and wait times are getting worse
How much profit telecom and government contractors make from long wait times
Whether intentional understaffing is being used to cut costs
Whether Canadians’ wasted data is a hidden revenue stream
What rights Canadians actually have when they can’t access essential services

This is bigger than inconvenience.
This is a national consumer-rights crisis.

So What Can We Do? (Solutions)

Here are real, actionable steps:

1. Public Investigations

Demand an ICIJ or national inquiry into call-centre operations and telecom pricing.

2. Enforce Maximum Wait Times

Other countries legally mandate call-centre response times. Canada can too.

3. Ban Paid Mobile Data Usage for Calls to Government Services

Taxpayers should never pay out-of-pocket to access essential services.

4. Require Telecoms to Staff Properly

Penalties should apply when companies intentionally understaff support lines.

5. Transparent Reporting

Publish monthly metrics for:

wait times
dropped calls
agent accuracy
average resolution times

6. Provide Call-Back Systems By Default

A 31-minute average wait time is proof of failure.
A mandatory callback option should be the minimum standard.

7. Reinstate In-Person Help Desks

Human services require human support.

10 Reflective Questions for Readers

Have you ever felt trapped on hold with a telecom or government service?
How much time do you think you’ve personally lost to call centres?
Should Canadians have to pay for mobile data just to access essential services?
Do you believe long wait times are incompetence — or intentional understaffing?
What would a fair telecom system look like to you?
Should CRA be allowed to outsource call centres when accuracy drops below 20%?
How does poor customer service impact trust in government?
What safeguards should exist to protect consumers from “wait-time exploitation”?
Would you support a public inquiry into telecom and call-centre practices?
How would your life improve if essential services answered calls within five minutes?

Final Word: Canadians Deserve Better

This isn’t about impatience.
This is about dignity.

People are trying to fix benefits, taxes, housing issues, identity documents, internet bills, emergencies.
These call centres are the front lines of everyday life.

When no one answers, people lose income, housing, peace of mind, and hours of their lives.

This is a system failure — and it’s costing us millions.

It’s time to demand better.
It’s time to expose the Call Service Disaster for the national crisis it is.