Heather Evans will become the next commissioner of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) on July 13, 2026, marking the first time the agency's leader has been appointed directly from the private tax community rather than from within government. The announcement, made by Prime Minister Mark Carney, comes as the CRA faces persistent criticism over service delays and a bureaucratic culture that critics say resists meaningful reform.
Evans Brings Private-Sector Experience to the CRA
Evans has led the Canadian Tax Foundation since 2016 and previously served as national managing partner of tax for a Big Four professional services firm. Kim Moody, a former chair of the Canadian Tax Foundation who has known Evans for years, holds her in high regard. “The job is an exercise in balancing competing constituencies, and Heather Evans has done it with distinction,” Moody wrote in a recent column.
The CRA was converted from a government department into an agency in 1999, freed from Treasury Board control and given its own board of management to import private-sector discipline. However, every previous commissioner came from within the government. Evans’s appointment breaks that pattern. The Union of Taxation Employees has expressed cautious optimism about the change.
Service Delays and the 100-Day Plan
Last September, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne declared the CRA’s service delays “unacceptable,” prompting the agency to launch a 100-Day Plan. In late October, the auditor general released a scathing report on the agency’s call centres, revealing that the government had advance knowledge of the report and was managing the damage. After day 100 arrived on Dec. 11, Moody described the results as “bureaucratic and political self-congratulation,” calling the plan a “moonwalk—a performance of motion, with the root causes left exactly where they were.”
Some observers say the plan produced real improvements, but practitioners have documented many of the CRA’s issues for years without meaningful response. “If it took an auditor general’s report—and a minister’s political need to get ahead of it—to finally administer the kick, that is not a defence of the plan; it is an indictment of the culture,” Moody wrote.
Challenges Ahead for Evans
The CRA administers the Income Tax Act and numerous other statutes but does not write the law. Within the commissioner’s administrative authority, however, lie meaningful opportunities for change. Moody argues that Canadians should insist on “real ones.” He contrasted Evans’s private-sector background with the agency’s history of insular leadership, suggesting that a commissioner from the trenches of tax reform would be worth more than a dozen 100-day plans.
Evans’s appointment has been met with cautious optimism from the Union of Taxation Employees, though Moody noted his own optimism stems from different reasons. The agency faces ongoing challenges, including calls for better service, reduced wait times, and a culture shift that prioritizes taxpayer needs over headline management.
