In the Turbo Tax Desktop version and using Easy Steps you can select to qualify for the First Time Donor Super Credit in both the "Profile" area and in the Donation set up screen. (See screen shots).

If an answer is not provided within Turbo Tax the software will default as no.

That option does not appear for me in that section. I have made donations in the past but was curious why this option does not appear. Turbotax does not show it because it knows i've made donations in the past? As a result the schedule 9 checkboxes are blank, but I was told yesterday that CRA defaults to "NO" if both yes/no are blank.

That is correct an unanswered question is set to NO as default to avoid error. The screen shots I provided should still be available to you in Turbo Tax, I will try and replicate your scenario and confirm.