Your CRA drop box closing affects all of us
Okay, so Revenue Canada— or, as everyone here says, *Revenu Canada*— is finally shuttering those physical drop boxes for tax filings after this season. Nationally, it's a move to push everything online, a cost-saving measure, a streamlining of services, *bien sûr*. But here in Ottawa? This hits different. We are, after all, the city of public servants, the place where forms and processes are not just a job, they are practically a way of life. The real story is never on the Hill — it's always just off it. How many of those boxes were filled by folks just popping out from their cubicles at Place du Portage or those endless government buildings along Tunney's Pasture, just to physically drop off a document because that's how it's always been done? Or even just because they're tired of fighting with the CRA website.
This isn't just about convenience, *non*. For a city with such a significant senior population, and for those who, for whatever reason — maybe they don't trust the internet with their most sensitive financial details, maybe they just prefer the tactile — having that physical option was a quiet reassurance. It’s a bit like when they started talking about phasing out paper bills; there’s a segment of the population that just wants to know it’s there. And let’s be real, a lot of people in the 613 are intimately familiar with bureaucracy. They know how to get things done, and sometimes that means a good old-fashioned paper trail. Closing the drop boxes? It feels like another small step away from that tangible connection, another brick in the wall of digital-first everything. I wonder how many of us will just hold onto our forms a bit longer, like we're waiting for a new directive to land.
Simone Okafor-Bouchard, MiTL Sports Desk, Ottawa.
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