“Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau declined a request for an interview”

CBC, trying hard not to get defunded.

At the height of this year’s tax season, the Canada Revenue Agency discovered that hackers had obtained confidential data used by one of the country’s largest tax preparation firms, H&R Block Canada.

Imposters used the company’s confidential credentials to get unauthorized access into hundreds of Canadians’ personal CRA accounts, change direct deposit information, submit false returns and pocket more than $6 million in bogus refunds from the public purse, an investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada has found.

In one case, the hackers filed a return with a legitimate postal code, but a fake address on a non-existent Tomato Street.

“Obviously the door is open and some people are infiltrating the system,” André Lareau, an associate tax professor at Laval University in Quebec City, said in an interview. “But the CRA does not seem to have found the key to lock the door.”

According to sources, the crisis prompted the CRA to contact the office of Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau.

In the end, the public was never alerted to the scheme.

I thought there were laws about that.

This is your reminder that experts within our institutions and government have designed hardened systems that guarantee maximum security and public trust, including elections.