HRM and 2019

[Colin May]

The Dow and the TSX ended 2018 lower than the end of 2017.
The Canadian dollar ended 2018 lower than the end of 2017.
What do current economic conditions mean for the governance of HRM and what are the threats and opportunities facing the council ?

[Keith P.]

I'm sure it means the HRM pension plan is in even worse condition than it was the previous year.

If this leads to the economic bubble popping, the gravy train for HRM revenue based on growth will come to an abrupt end. However, because most of their expenditures are staff that cannot be fired or laid off, look for sharp increases in the property tax rate in the upcoming years. This is the direct result of HRM not exercising any controls whatsoever on wasteful spending over the past number of years during the growth bubble. It will be a harsh reckoning. I am looking for property outside of HRM.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I'm sure it means the HRM pension plan is in even worse condition than it was the previous year.

If this leads to the economic bubble popping, the gravy train for HRM revenue based on growth will come to an abrupt end. However, because most of their expenditures are staff that cannot be fired or laid off, look for sharp increases in the property tax rate in the upcoming years. This is the direct result of HRM not exercising any controls whatsoever on wasteful spending over the past number of years during the growth bubble. It will be a harsh reckoning. I am looking for property outside of HRM.

Read this : https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/regional-council/190115rc123pres.pdf
Read all of it. Sometimes a person just has to prod a councillor to put the issue on the agenda.

Key quotes from pages 8 & 14
• HRM Plan provides more generous features than the vast majority of plans across the country
• After considering CPP and OAS many HRM Plan Members retire with more net cash flow than they had preretirement
• Flat 2.0% accrual rate that is not integrated with CPP. Vast majority of public sector plans are integrated
with CPP
• Generous early retirement provisions
• One area where some plans provide more benefit than HRM is with regards to post-retirement indexation
of pensions
• HRM contribution rates among the highest in the country (see Appendix 3)

Quote : Superintendent of Pensions in Nova Scotia issued a consultation paper in
September 2017
• New rules expected to be released in Q1 2019
• Ontario has already released and implemented their revised funding rules
• Nova Scotia largely mirrors Ontario with regards to pension legislation
• Once fully implemented, changes will likely result in increased funding
requirements of 2-4% of payroll for the Plan, assuming no adjustments to
Plan design
• Total Plan payroll of ~$370M* implies each 1% payroll contribution equates
to ~$3.7M

[Keith P.]

Yes, the HRM pension plan is gold-plated, with ridiculous provisions. No adjustment for CPP being paid at age 65 like most other plans, which is the most obvious change that needs to be made. No formula for COLA increases, which needs to be put in place. No detail on "special payments", which sounds ripe for abuse. No limit on # of years earning pension, which means someone could get a pension paying 100% of their best 3 years salary if they held on long enough (I hope it cannot go over 100%). It violates a lot of the rules that well-managed plans follow. It is a financial bomb waiting to go off in the faces of HRM taxpayers.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Yes, the HRM pension plan is gold-plated, with ridiculous provisions. No adjustment for CPP being paid at age 65 like most other plans, which is the most obvious change that needs to be made. No formula for COLA increases, which needs to be put in place. No detail on "special payments", which sounds ripe for abuse. No limit on # of years earning pension, which means someone could get a pension paying 100% of their best 3 years salary if they held on long enough (I hope it cannot go over 100%). It violates a lot of the rules that well-managed plans follow. It is a financial bomb waiting to go off in the faces of HRM taxpayers.

The HRM retirees do not get COLA.
The maximum pension available is 70% of best average 3 years. No pension plan is allowed to pay more.
Special payments are payments required by legislation in every province in order to keep a plan properly funded.
Page 30 of the report shows the HRM paying a higher pension to a retiree age 60 from age 60 to age 81 than elsewhere in Canada, with the exception of age 62 to 65 for a municipal retiree in Ontario.
And very few jurisdictions in Canada pay a Long Service Award and none as high as 50% of final salary.
THe Council should ask for a report looking at Long Service Awards in Canada. I have looked at most jurisdictions but not all.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Colin May

The HRM retirees do not get COLA.
The maximum pension available is 70% of best average 3 years. No pension plan is allowed to pay more.
Special payments are payments required by legislation in every province in order to keep a plan properly funded.
Page 30 of the report shows the HRM paying a higher pension to a retiree age 60 from age 60 to age 81 than elsewhere in Canada, with the exception of age 62 to 65 for a municipal retiree in Ontario.
And very few jurisdictions in Canada pay a Long Service Award and none as high as 50% of final salary.
THe Council should ask for a report looking at Long Service Awards in Canada. I have looked at most jurisdictions but not all.

The report is vague on COLA. The chart showing benefits does not show any yet another chart describes it as ad hoc which I take as meaning it happens sometimes.

Good to know about the payment maximum.

I saw no reference in the presentation to long service awards. Perhaps this is personal knowledge you have. How do they work in HRM? I know they have been phased out in most jurisdictions.

Do you know if overtime is included in the calculation of best 3 years salary? We have a HRP constable who made $188K last year due to a ridiculous amount of overtime. If this is included in the pension calculation it will result in very rich pensions for such members and heavy demands on the plan.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

The report is vague on COLA. The chart showing benefits does not show any yet another chart describes it as ad hoc which I take as meaning it happens sometimes.

Good to know about the payment maximum.

I saw no reference in the presentation to long service awards. Perhaps this is personal knowledge you have. How do they work in HRM? I know they have been phased out in most jurisdictions.

Do you know if overtime is included in the calculation of best 3 years salary? We have a HRP constable who made $188K last year due to a ridiculous amount of overtime. If this is included in the pension calculation it will result in very rich pensions for such members and heavy demands on the plan.

COLA - the words 'ad hoc' refers to other plans in Canada which do not have COLA as an automatic increase but may be given depending on the funding status of the plan.
Overtime is not included as it is not classed as 'regular earnings'.

Long Service Awards is not discusssed in the report. An HRM employee can have an award to a maximum of 6 months of final year salary/regular earnings. I have looked at other jurisdictions, many do not have such awards and the maximum in one city is 3 months basic pay. Information is available in the HRM financial statements. CRA does not allow such a liability to be funded through a savings fund or an investment vehicle, the liability must be funded as an annual operating expense. HRM could get around this by investing the amount or a lesser amount in the market and having the income flow into the General Revenue Fund and then flow out of the fund into the annual budget, and not describing the investment as being solely for the awards but describing the monies as being available for general expenditures.
The liability (accrued obligation) as of March 31 2018 is $32,815,000 ... see pages 22 & 23 of the statements
https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/regional-council/180731rc1433.pdf
Page 21 has details of the pension plan.

[Corker]

I’d like to add a few points as well, in case it is not evident to all readers what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ about the HRM plan. As a point of disclosure, I’m not an HRM employee but I have some familiarity with their pension plan. Of course others may have differing opinions about what is good or bad.

Bad for the employee, good for taxpayers:
- Retirees get no cost of living allowance. This is an unusual constraint on the plan members as it is common amongst other pension plans to have some form of COLA. It can be very bad for someone who chooses to retire in their early 50s and is expecting to live to their 80s or 90s.
- High contribution rates. HRM employees contribute 12.21% of their pay to the plan (matched by HRM) which the report states is among the highest rates in the country.

Good for the employee, bad for taxpayers:
- Early retirement options. The earlier an employee can retire the earlier they stop contributing and start withdrawing funds from the plan.
- 3 Year Best Average Earnings. Three years is a relatively short timeframe to calculate average earnings. Extending the period for the average to five or more years would produce a lower average resulting in reduced pensions and an improved financial position for the plan.

Good and bad:
- Shared plan – any contribution rate increases required or special payments are shared 50/50 between HRM and employees. In some plans the employer is fully liable for special payments to cover funding deficits but with HRM’s plan employees are on the hook too.

Good for the employee, no impact on taxpayers:
- There are typically a variety of options available such as spousal/survivor guarantees and integration with CPP & OAS. I'm not sure if HRM has this but if they do it is normally priced by an actuary and the pension payments are adjusted so that the employee effectively pays for the benefit.

The limit of 70% of salary for pension payments was eliminated by CRA a number of years ago. Contrary to Keith’s point about someone getting 100% or more of their salary as a pension, it would actually be a good thing for taxpayers. It means the employee worked and contributed to the plan for 50 years and ultimately will receive pension payments for far fewer years than if they had retired at their earliest opportunity. A majority of employees, but not all, will retire at their earliest opportunity for an unreduced pension but it benefits the plan when someone delays retiring.

Lastly, as Colin mentioned, overtime is not included in pensionable earnings or long service award calculations.

To bring the topic back to Colin’s question in the original post, the lower market returns will certainly have an impact on the current year returns of HRM’s pension plan, however, pension funds are managed by an independent investment firm, invested in diverse international markets, and utilize a long-term investment strategy. If markets were down for a number of years it would be of greater concern, but an occasional down year is expected and wouldn’t prompt a sudden increase in contribution rates or cost to taxpayers.

I think the impact of a downturn in the national economy or stock market is muted in HRM in much the same way that we don’t benefit from a booming economy in Ontario and Alberta.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Corker

I’d like to add a few points as well, in case it is not evident to all readers what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ about the HRM plan. As a point of disclosure, I’m not an HRM employee but I have some familiarity with their pension plan. Of course others may have differing opinions about what is good or bad.

Bad for the employee, good for taxpayers:
- Retirees get no cost of living allowance. This is an unusual constraint on the plan members as it is common amongst other pension plans to have some form of COLA. It can be very bad for someone who chooses to retire in their early 50s and is expecting to live to their 80s or 90s.
- High contribution rates. HRM employees contribute 12.21% of their pay to the plan (matched by HRM) which the report states is among the highest rates in the country.

Good for the employee, bad for taxpayers:
- Early retirement options. The earlier an employee can retire the earlier they stop contributing and start withdrawing funds from the plan.
- 3 Year Best Average Earnings. Three years is a relatively short timeframe to calculate average earnings. Extending the period for the average to five or more years would produce a lower average resulting in reduced pensions and an improved financial position for the plan.

Good and bad:
- Shared plan – any contribution rate increases required or special payments are shared 50/50 between HRM and employees. In some plans the employer is fully liable for special payments to cover funding deficits but with HRM’s plan employees are on the hook too.

Good for the employee, no impact on taxpayers:
- There are typically a variety of options available such as spousal/survivor guarantees and integration with CPP & OAS. I'm not sure if HRM has this but if they do it is normally priced by an actuary and the pension payments are adjusted so that the employee effectively pays for the benefit.

The limit of 70% of salary for pension payments was eliminated by CRA a number of years ago. Contrary to Keith’s point about someone getting 100% or more of their salary as a pension, it would actually be a good thing for taxpayers. It means the employee worked and contributed to the plan for 50 years and ultimately will receive pension payments for far fewer years than if they had retired at their earliest opportunity. A majority of employees, but not all, will retire at their earliest opportunity for an unreduced pension but it benefits the plan when someone delays retiring.

Lastly, as Colin mentioned, overtime is not included in pensionable earnings or long service award calculations.

To bring the topic back to Colin’s question in the original post, the lower market returns will certainly have an impact on the current year returns of HRM’s pension plan, however, pension funds are managed by an independent investment firm, invested in diverse international markets, and utilize a long-term investment strategy. If markets were down for a number of years it would be of greater concern, but an occasional down year is expected and wouldn’t prompt a sudden increase in contribution rates or cost to taxpayers.

I think the impact of a downturn in the national economy or stock market is muted in HRM in much the same way that we don’t benefit from a booming economy in Ontario and Alberta.

Thanks for the correction re the 70% limit removal. In my calculations I have always assumed the 70% limit was in place.
They don't get COLA because their income is higher. They have a stacked plan and the other plans referenced on page 30 shows an HRM retiree has a higher gross income than all the other public sector plans for a longer period. See page 30 of the presentation : https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/regional-council/190115rc123pres.pdf
There is little fiscal discipline in the provincial legislation, a private business would have a low chance of running a pension fund in this manner. The province should tell HRM to fix the problem and fully fund the plan by the end of 2023 and get rid of the service award, freeze the service award or not offer it to new employees; the liability would decline over time and reduce the burden on taxpayers.
The markets have been good for the past decade and yet the plan continues to have significant funding problems requiring annual actuarial reports. The plan will have to submit another actuarial valuation for the calendar year 2018. In other words, an expected slowdown in the world economy will heap further pressure on the plan and cause an increase in contributions.
I don't know of any other shared cost pension plan where all the governing members are required to be members of the plan. A senior city employee is in a conflict of interest when making decisions in the best interests of the employer/taxpayer.
The discussion at council will be interesting, unfortunately the additional in camera discussion at the end of the meeting will never be made public. Members of council should not be in the pension plan as they are not employees.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Corker

The limit of 70% of salary for pension payments was eliminated by CRA a number of years ago. Contrary to Keith’s point about someone getting 100% or more of their salary as a pension, it would actually be a good thing for taxpayers. It means the employee worked and contributed to the plan for 50 years and ultimately will receive pension payments for far fewer years than if they had retired at their earliest opportunity. A majority of employees, but not all, will retire at their earliest opportunity for an unreduced pension but it benefits the plan when someone delays retiring.

Reasonable point about delaying retirement leading to extra contribution years. However my point merely echoed the statement made in the presentation that some employees take home more money in retirement than they did while working. This is solely due to the plan's lack of integration with the CPP. This is the first thing that needs to be changed as it would significantly reduce demands on the plan going forward.

[MonctonRad]

As a self employed professional, all this talk about pensions boggles my mind. I have no pension, and will have to fund my retirement entirely based on my savings (which Trudeau and Morneau has fucked with their adjustments to the small business passive income situation). If I live sufficiently long enough (mid nineties), I will outlive my savings, although I should be safe if I keep on working until I am 68 (unless there is a huge market downturn).

Meanwhile my teacher friend across the street, who (luckily) got a full time position straight out of university was able to accumulate enough points to retire at age 53 and is happily secure even if he lives to be 115.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

As a self employed professional, all this talk about pensions boggles my mind. I have no pension, and will have to fund my retirement entirely based on my savings (which Trudeau and Morneau has fucked with their adjustments to the small business passive income situation). If I live sufficiently long enough (mid nineties), I will outlive my savings, although I should be safe if I keep on working until I am 68 (unless there is a huge market downturn).

Meanwhile my teacher friend across the street, who (luckily) got a full time position straight out of university was able to accumulate enough points to retire at age 53 and is happily secure even if he lives to be 115.

And if you work at HRM and retire when you earned $60,000 in your final year you will be handed a $30,000 long service award which you roll over to an RRSP. No other town/city has such a generous award, some don't even have a long service award and those that do maxes out at 3 months pay, not 6 months at HRM.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

As a self employed professional, all this talk about pensions boggles my mind. I have no pension, and will have to fund my retirement entirely based on my savings (which Trudeau and Morneau has fucked with their adjustments to the small business passive income situation). If I live sufficiently long enough (mid nineties), I will outlive my savings, although I should be safe if I keep on working until I am 68 (unless there is a huge market downturn).

Meanwhile my teacher friend across the street, who (luckily) got a full time position straight out of university was able to accumulate enough points to retire at age 53 and is happily secure even if he lives to be 115.

There are a few different things going on here though.

One is that self-employed people simply have more responsibility to save for themselves. You can earn $250,000 a year and end up with no extra savings in retirement. Or you could save a lot more than a school teacher will get from their pension. This is essentially separate from the pension issue.

BTW if you want you can also buy a lifetime annuity with all or a portion of your savings and have a guaranteed stream of money until you die (I dunno how it works if you want to peg them to inflation, and they are probably not quite as good as government-backed agreements).

Then there is the question of transparency of compensation and organized labour. In my opinion this is where the public pensions go off the rails. Pensions should be defined contribution and when public compensation is discussed by the media or government it should be presented in terms of total compensation, not take home pay or gross salary. Those "$70,000 a year" public sector employees might really be getting $120,000 a year compensation packages when you factor in pensions and other benefits. When you combine unions and professional associations with a lack of transparency on earnings you get people who play the victim even when their compensation is way above average.

Teachers are one example of this. They also "eat their young" through their union. There is an underclass of substitute teachers who have really horrible working conditions for years, and there are the more tenured ones who do extremely well. They get a lot of unusual benefits, e.g. they get 20 sick days a year and can bank up to 195 days, which basically amounts to getting a bonus year off. This is not accounted for in their salary figures. Some teachers were making $92,000 a year salaries in 2016 in NS. Who knows what their total compensation is? $140,000 a year?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by someone123

Then there is the question of transparency of compensation and organized labour. In my opinion this is where the public pensions go off the rails. Pensions should be defined contribution and when public compensation is discussed by the media or government it should be presented in terms of total compensation, not take home pay or gross salary. Those "$70,000 a year" public sector employees might really be getting $120,000 a year compensation packages when you factor in pensions and other benefits. When you combine unions and professional associations with a lack of transparency on earnings you get people who play the victim even when their compensation is way above average.

Indeed. I'm not trying to play the victim myself. I realize how fortunate i am to have been able to go to university for 13 years (especially given my very modest origins), and to have attained a professional designation allowing me a secure and lucrative career.

It's just that many civil servants are much better off than they let on, and as you have pointed out, their true compensation (benefits factored in) often far outstrips their private sector counterparts. In addition, civil service positions frequently are "jobs for life", while many private sector employees often have to move positions at least several times in their career, and have much more precarious employment income, and a much more difficult time in creating the proper conditions allowing them to save for retirement.

I agree with Colin, it would be much more fair if civil servants were governed by defined contribution rather than defined benefit conditions for their retirement. This would certainly level the playing field between the public and private spheres.........

[someone123]

I think this is a big part of the "cost disease" our economy is experiencing in health care and education. High overall compensation, lots of administrators.

We're also moving to an economy of haves and have nots. Back in the 1960's, private sector employment was more stable and there was a higher proportion of full-time jobs with benefits and pensions. The public and private sectors were probably a lot more similar back then. The private sector has since evolved to become much leaner, but the public sector has become more bloated. This means that a lot of private sector workers are vastly worse off; they pay taxes to fund public sector workers but they get the weaker private sector compensation.

There are a few parts of the private sector that have maintained high wages through organized labour or plain old labour scarcity, but these make up a small portion of the overall economy.

Our labour laws have not adapted to the new reality of the Canadian economy either. For example our laws on paid leave are based on tenure at a single employer. In 1970 you'd have people graduating high school, working at 18, and hitting 3 weeks off by the time they were 24. Few people I know in their 20's and 30's have ever been at one employer for 6 years, and most of them spent at least 4 years in post-secondary in order to get more than a minimum wage job (minimum wage has also not kept up with inflation or productivity). The number of legally mandated sick days is 0.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think this is a big part of the "cost disease" our economy is experiencing in health care and education. High overall compensation, lots of administrators.

We're also moving to an economy of haves and have nots. Back in the 1960's, private sector employment was more stable and there was a higher proportion of full-time jobs with benefits and pensions. The public and private sectors were probably a lot more similar back then. The private sector has since evolved to become much leaner, but the public sector has become more bloated. This means that a lot of private sector workers are vastly worse off; they pay taxes to fund public sector workers but they get the weaker private sector compensation.

There are a few parts of the private sector that have maintained high wages through organized labour or plain old labour scarcity, but these make up a small portion of the overall economy.

The cost disease is very real. I can provide some experience on this front. I have worked in both the public sector and private sector over the years, beginning in the late 1970s. I have seem the evolution of both first-hand.

In the private sector there is a spectrum of behavior. Small businesses or medium-small owner/manager firms can be quite frugal because it is the owner's money that is being spent. And while large corporations have gone through re-engineering and "rightsizing", there still tends to be much more lavish spending than in small businesses, until or unless they run aground on the financial rocks. When that happens often the employee's pensions are among the victims.

Back in the early days of my work life public sector jobs were paid less overall than equivalent work in the private sector, and working conditions were often very stark as well. Old beat-up desks and chairs and dismal office environments were the norm. There was a very real culture of frugality. The difference was as you note, the benefit package along with virtually guaranteed employment for life, unless you were caught stealing or actually found guilty of committing crimes. Over the last decade or so this has dramatically changed.

Now the public sector often pays better than the private sector for a lot of positions not even taking into account the benefit package, pension, and other working conditions. Part of this comes from them claiming they were not able to attract qualified employees for certain types of jobs like IT. This was true, but what happened was that when those people got paid more, everyone else got paid more too. It was not all that long ago that provincial deputies did not earn 6 figures. Now many deputies are pushing $250K and a great many civil servants make 100K. This is particularly acute in HRM and especially the Feds where salaries are very rich.

The other things that have occurred that differ from a couple of decades ago are the loss of the frugal culture, leading to a general upgrading of working conditions, often with with Class A space and modern furniture, equipment and tech; much larger staffing complements, especially in the back-office, policy and non-service delivery areas; the adoption of "best practices" which leads to greatly increased costs not always commensurate with improved services; and the overall expansion of government intrusion into people's lives, as we see quite clearly in places like HRM, which is now almost a $1 billion per year operation. It is no surprise that all of these things contribute greatly to bloat and increased cost to deliver services.

[someone123]

A while ago I was following the story of a company that was hunting for office space here in Vancouver. It is a company that earns millions of dollars a year per employee. It was rumoured to have lost the bid on a lease in one office building to a CRA operation or something similar.

CRA is an example of an agency that adds little value and mostly exists at its current scale because of overly complicated tax laws. Meanwhile in Vancouver there was a $1B money laundering case and it was dropped because it was botched. We have the worst of both worlds; complicated taxes law abiding citizens pay a lot to administer, yet still lots of money laundering, tax evasion, and loopholes (e.g. homemaker living in $15M mansion and reporting $0 in income, then selling the house for a $10M tax-free profit).

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think this is a big part of the "cost disease" our economy is experiencing in health care and education. High overall compensation, lots of administrators.

We're also moving to an economy of haves and have nots. Back in the 1960's, private sector employment was more stable and there was a higher proportion of full-time jobs with benefits and pensions. The public and private sectors were probably a lot more similar back then. The private sector has since evolved to become much leaner, but the public sector has become more bloated. This means that a lot of private sector workers are vastly worse off; they pay taxes to fund public sector workers but they get the weaker private sector compensation.

There are a few parts of the private sector that have maintained high wages through organized labour or plain old labour scarcity, but these make up a small portion of the overall economy.

Our labour laws have not adapted to the new reality of the Canadian economy either. For example our laws on paid leave are based on tenure at a single employer. In 1970 you'd have people graduating high school, working at 18, and hitting 3 weeks off by the time they were 24. Few people I know in their 20's and 30's have ever been at one employer for 6 years, and most of them spent at least 4 years in post-secondary in order to get more than a minimum wage job (minimum wage has also not kept up with inflation or productivity). The number of legally mandated sick days is 0.

Good points and good discussion.
Years ago and even today a public sector employee had job security, no fear of being laid off and a guaranteed pension. In exchange the employee was paid less than a private sector employee. Until a few years ago, I would have to read the annual reports to pinpoint the time, a bank employee and an employee at a large corporation had a non-contributory pension plan.( We had one at Imperial Oil). The banks and almost all corporations no longer have such pension plans, the regulatory burden and the risk to the company is too great.
Obviously there is significant financial value in having job security.
The question is : why should a public sector employee have guaranteed employment, higher income and better pension income than those in the private sector ?
I would point out once again that the HRM pension plan has never been discussed at an open council meeting. I am happy to see this issue to finally enter the public realm.
If I was an HRM employee I would prefer to not be in the pension plan but have HRM pay 6-8% of basic earnings into a self directed RRSP and allow me to make my own investment decisions, it isn't rocket science and you don't need an MBA to do better than those managing the HRM pension plan. My experience over 25 years has provided a compound annual return over 9%.
For those living in HRM I suggest you express your opinion to your councillor - she/he is in the plan.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Colin May

For those living in HRM I suggest you express your opinion to your councillor - she/he is in the plan.

I thought councillors were not in the plan? Why was Hendsbee asking to be let in a few years ago?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

CRA is an example of an agency that adds little value and mostly exists at its current scale because of overly complicated tax laws.

I understand that CRA will no longer provide advice or answers to questions that are not already written down in their manuals. This means that asking for them to interpret the complex laws to provide guidance to the taxpayer is no longer done. They require you to go to an accountant or a tax lawyer, follow that advice, and then CRA will determine whether or not you are in compliance, rather than work with the person or group wanting to pay their taxes.

I also hear they will not agree to meetings for such discussions.

Neither of these things is how a public agency should operate.