The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is structured to conduct large volumes of transactions efficiently while protecting taxpayer information. But it also contains siloes which can lead to unintended impacts. It became clear that if evaluation was going to meaningfully impact the CRA and contribute to reshaping traditional ideas, it would have to transform its own approaches.

This presentation will detail how the CRA adopted a systems approach to evaluations. This meant moving away from examining one program and instead looking at how multiple programs interact to serve the taxpayer. Key to this change was an investment in data analytics leading to the ability to connect data from over 300 different databases. These efforts have allowed evaluation to recommend the building of bridges where, judging by their reactions, few senior managers could have seen them.

With numerous reports published and stories to tell, the CRA evaluation team can share how it is helping to steer the CRA toward greater integration and the obstacles that were overcome in doing so.