After conducting an investigation, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) said it is not convinced of the “validity” of a radio show caller who claimed to be an agency employee that fraudulently received COVID benefits.
On Feb. 9, the Alex Pierson Show was
contacted live on the air by a male caller claiming to be a CRA employee. Calling himself “Jonathan,” the caller said he was a collection agent able to work from home because of COVID.
He said that when mandatory vaccines were implemented at the CRA, a group of “hundreds” of disgruntled employees started a Facebook group and claimed the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) “just to kick back at Trudeau.”
He said the employees felt justified, after putting in religious exemptions to COVID shots that were denied. “They kicked us to the curb,” he said.
Jonathan claimed that employees knew the system and applied for pandemic relief benefits without a social insurance number, sometimes multiple times.
“We took what we could get from it, “ he told the radio show. He said he did not feel any guilt over claiming $2,000 in pandemic checks.
“The public gets the government they elect, okay? These were policies of the government,” he said.
Questions
In a statement to The Epoch Times, CRA spokesperson Nina Ioussoupova said active employees were not eligible for CERB, and that any employee who “fraudulently claimed the CERB would have been in violation of the CRA’s Code of Integrity and Professional Conduct and the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector.”CRA said employees caught fraudulently claiming government benefits would have to repay the amounts, and could be subject to disciplinary measures including termination of employment or revocation of security status, which would significantly impede the individual’s ability to ever work for a government department again.
Security clearance “is required for the vast majority of government jobs,” Ioussoupova noted.
The agency said it was aware of the radio call-in show, and investigated the situation.
“We would like to note a few points which call into question the validity of this call,” said Ioussoupova.
“The caller claims to have applied for the CERB after the CRA began verifying the COVID-19 vaccine status of its employees. The last day to apply for the CERB was December 2, 2020, while the Government of Canada announced its intention to require employees to be vaccinated in August 2021,” she said.
CRA said that the caller claimed to have applied for benefits without a social insurance number (SIN). “At no time was it possible to apply for any individual pandemic benefits without providing a SIN,” it said.
The tax agency also said multiple applications for CERB “would not be possible” and any legitimate CRA tax collection agent “would most likely be aware of all the points above.”
“Regardless of the legitimacy of this allegation, all allegations of employee misconduct are taken seriously and addressed,” said Ioussoupova.
Earlier this month, the federal government
said it had fired 49 public servants for allegedly claiming CERB while being employed.
Maria Crescenzi, assistant deputy minister of Employment and Social Development Canada, told a House of Commons committee: “It was discovered that some of our employees had availed themselves … of CERB. Those individuals that did break the trust of the employer-employee relationship … have been terminated.”
She told the committee employees had misrepresented their situation to apply for the benefit, and did so outside of regular working hours on personal devices.
Canada’s auditor general Karen Hogan appeared as a witness on Jan. 26 at a federal committee looking into public accounts, and said that at least $27.4 million in questionable COVID benefit payments needed to be investigated.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the CRA disclosed that the agency had found instances of active employees claiming CERB.
CRA Commissioner Bob Hamilton provided testimony before the House of Commons public accounts committee on how many instances of fraud were found, stating on Jan. 26, “I don’t have the numbers right in front of me. Not very many, obviously. I don’t believe any of those cases have gone into a criminal investigation.”
New Brunswick Conservative MP and committee chair John Williamson asked Hamilton to be more specific. “Could you provide this committee with the numbers? I’m afraid ‘not very many’ is not a sufficient answer,” he said.
Hamilton said he would “endeavour to get you those numbers,” but did not specify a time frame to respond.
Hamilton also said verifying billions of COVID wage subsidy claims would not be “worth the effort.” He said that CRA believes the number of ineligible claims for pandemic benefits was “significantly lower” than what the auditor general suggested. Peter Wilson contributed to this report.
