Congratulations to everyone who supported our petition.  Although we surpassed 50,000 signatures for our respectful, non-partisan petition (that was always based on both integrity and respect), we failed to garner any media attention.  I am uncertain why, despite our best efforts, the media did not believe that our plight was newsworthy.  Without broader dissemination of our legitimate request for a short extension, it is difficult for our issue to maintain momentum.  If any of you have contacts in government or the media, I urge you to share our petition and to try and attract their attention.  Below is an extract from an email that a fellow supporter shared with me that he sent to senior members of the government (and the opposition parties) as well as many members of the media expressing frustration that nobody in the media has covered our petition.  We should all be proud that we rallied around a just cause and I sincerely thank everyone for their amazing support.  

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There is a real news story here and it’s disheartening to me that no one seems willing to pick it up.  There are still 2 weeks before the filing deadline.  The idea that it is ‘too late’ is untrue.  There are many prominent CPAs who have put their name and concerns on comments in the petition.  Their contact info is readily available online.  I am sure they could be contacted with relative ease and would be happy to provide comment if someone was willing to try to do something.

The CRA saying they will take things on a ‘case by case’ basis is a massive F-you to all Canadians who are locked out of their CRA accounts and cannot get the CRA on the phone to resolve the issue.  

There was a mass cyber-attack in August 2020 that resulted in thousands of Canadians having their CRA online accounts compromised and subsequently locked.  Coverage on this issue was weak.

Based on those that signed the petition, it appears to me that the hardest hit group of tax preparers are female sole practitioners who are overwhelmed and exacerbated.  Many have kids at home and are dealing with elderly clients who cannot figure out the internet and are too fearful to leave their houses during the third wave.  The government says its committed to gender equality in taxation but this seems to be lip service to me. 

I understand that senior government officials are aware of the petition and its concerns yet are unwilling to do anything about it.