Good afternoon,

As we move forward with business resumption, the health and safety of you, your families, and all Canadians continues to be our top priority.

To maximize our efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and ensure the safety of our colleagues, the CRA will provide each employee currently reporting to a CRA work site or currently conducting field activities with two cloth masks. If you prefer to wear your own non-medical mask, please continue to do so after reviewing this guidance from the Public Health Agency of Canada. For building re-entry purposes, disposable masks will be made available if you do not bring your own. Cloth masks come with a filter that could be inserted into the mask. The filter is not a requirement for the mask to be effective and replacements are not necessary. Use and care of a cloth mask is outlined in the following Safe Work Procedure.

Some municipalities and provinces are requiring the public to wear non-medical masks in public areas within buildings. Specifically, this means the entrance of your building to your CRA work site could be considered a public space, which could require you to wear a mask. These areas are not controlled by the CRA and you will need to abide by these requirements.

While it is not mandatory to wear non-medical masks in CRA workspaces, we encourage all employees to wear a mask as an additional health measure along with washing your hands frequently and coughing or sneezing into a sleeve. These health measures are in place to help each other stay healthy and safe.

To ensure that masks are readily available for the employees who need them, managers should only purchase masks for employees currently reporting to a CRA work site or conducting field activities. Masks are now available for purchase in Synergy.

We understand that, throughout the pandemic, the public environment and related guidance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has continued to evolve. If you are ever feeling discouraged, overwhelmed, or worn out, we encourage you to reach out to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). They are there to help you and your families.

TTo keep up to date on developments, please visit the Canada.ca page for CRA Employees, or follow our social media networks Facebook, Twitter and our RSS feed.

We thank you for your continuing efforts to help keep our colleagues, families and Canadians safe. We are truly proud of all of you.