Over the last three years, we’ve visited CVITP host organizations in six cities spanning five provinces.  At the risk of overgeneralizing, we see broadly two types of host organizations.  They have different objectives which lead to very different practices and sustainability in providing CVITP services.  One of the two organizations is more common and serves most of the CVITP’s clients across Canada.  Yet it is the weaker of the two types of host organizations.  If the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) wants to expand the CVITP, the current situation presents it with some big operational challenges.

In this article, we outline the main features distinguishing the two types of organizations, show why these differences severely limit the CVITP’s potential for expansion, and suggest some ways in which the CRA could constructively meet this challenge.  Find out which of the two types of organizations yours is most alike, see if there are any defining characteristics we’ve missed, and let us know if you agree with our reasoning that this presents a problem for the CRA as well as with our proposed solution for building on these differences to the CVITP’s advantage.