My experience is that these institutions were largely fine pre-COVID, certainly I never had any issue getting seen at Service Canada or contacting the CRA. Things have certainly gotten worse in the last 3 years, but it seems likely that these are the same pressures causing issues in other comparable nations. The UK passport office, for example, is struggling in much the same way [0], and I believe that is also true elsewhere in Europe.

[0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-62378144