OTTAWA -- Tax disputes are taking too long to resolve, there's no way to evaluate efforts to streamline cross-border traffic and trade and Canada is "squandering" the potential of its Aboriginal Peoples, the federal auditor general says in his annual fall report.

Michael Ferguson is marking the midpoint of his 10-year mandate by acknowledging some recurring themes, lamenting the fact that despite five years of pointing out flaws in the bureaucracy, a number of them continue to show up in his reports year after year.

"In just five years, with some 100 performance audits and special examinations behind me since I began my mandate, the results of some audits seem to be -- in the immortal words of Yogi Berra -- 'deja vu all over again,"' Ferguson writes in the message that usually accompanies his twice-annual reports.

Those reports say the ongoing Beyond the Border initiative, designed to ease the flow of goods and people between Canada and the U.S. while improving national security, is unable to adequately demonstrate its overall effectiveness to ordinary Canadians.

They also note that individuals and companies who object to income tax assessments made by the Canada Revenue Agency are being made to wait unacceptably long for their complaints to be acknowledged, let alone resolved.

And Ferguson says indigenous offenders are not getting the help they need to reintegrate into society once released from prison, while changes to federal land claims -- meant to expedite matters -- are having the opposite effect.

"I can only describe the situation as it exists now as beyond unacceptable," he writes, citing more than a decade of reports that pointed out flaws in the federal government's treatment of indigenous Canadians.

"Until a problem-solving mindset is brought to these issues to develop solutions built around people instead of defaulting to litigation, arguments about money, and process roadblocks, this country will continue to squander the potential and lives of much of its indigenous population."

He says the Department of National Defence still hasn't figured out how to properly account for and rein in the cost of maintaining its equipment, or to deal with dwindling recruitment numbers.