The federal government has reclaimed over $2 billion in Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments paid out during the pandemic to ineligible recipients due to inadequate verification methods, according to the Department of Employment.
The department said in a recent briefing note obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter that over 1.1 million Canadians had fully repaid their CERB debts as of this past May, with all repayments totalling over $2.1 billion.
“A balance of $1 billion remains unpaid,” said the note, titled “Canadians Waiting To Have Their CERB Eligibility Status Reviewed May Still Lose Money To Clawbacks.”
The department said the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is responsible for collecting these debts—although CRA Commissioner Bob Hamilton previously said that verifying the billions of dollars in COVID wage subsidy claims paid out to potentially ineligible recipients “wouldn’t be worth the effort.”
The CRA also said earlier this year in an Inquiry of Ministry that it had spent over $147 million auditing CERB claims and recovering ineligible payments amounting to as little as $7.
The House of Commons passed the “Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act” in March 2020 shortly after the federal and provincial governments began implementing COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns across Canada.
CERB payments outlined in the legislation were intended to give $500 per week—collectible for up to 16 weeks—to Canadians who lost income either directly or indirectly because of COVID.
Parliament had originally budgeted the CERB program to cost around $24 billion, but the actual cost came in at around $81.6 billion.
Ineligible Payments
Auditor General Karen Hogan said in a December 2022 report that around $4.6 billion in CERB payments were released to ineligible recipients, with another $27.4 billion going to individuals whose eligibility status hadn’t been confirmed.Hogan said in her report that the high amounts of ineligible payments were due to the fact that federal departments prioritized sending out the payments quickly rather than ensuring applicants met the eligibility criteria.
The CRA also said in an Inquiry of Ministry in April that over 620,300 ineligible CERB recipients were yet to pay back any of that debt.
The agency added at the time that around 264,500 Canadians who had been deemed ineligible for the benefit had fully repaid their CERB debts, while just over 62,900 had partially repaid them.
However, the CRA also found that 20 of its employees had collected CERB during the pandemic despite being ineligible, and fired them as a result. The CRA is also investigating about 600 other employees who collected the benefit while working within the agency.
Matthew Horwood, Andrew Chen, and The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
