Minister Won’t Disclose Number of CRA Employees Fired for Defrauding Pandemic Relief Program, Citing Privacy Risk

Minister of National Revenue Diane Lebouthillier rises during question period in the House of Commons on Dec. 8, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang

Federal Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier will not disclose to parliamentarians how many federal employees have been fired for defrauding a pandemic-relief subsidy program intended for Canadians who were struggling with unemployment.

MPs have repeatedly sought to obtain the number from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) after a committee learned in February that a number of employees in Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough’s department were fired for applying for and receiving up to $2,000 in monthly Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments while still working for Employment and Social Development Canada.

In a recent Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons, Lebouthillier acknowledged that the CRA has fired “a number of employees” found to have collected CERB payments while they were still in the agency’s employ, but would not disclose how many, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

“The specific number of terminations is too small to disclose without creating a privacy risk that could lead to one or more of the individuals being identified,” she said in the Inquiry.

The Inquiry was tabled in response to a question by Conservative MP Jeremy Patzer, who asked how many federal employees in total have been fired as a result of collecting CERB while still working for the government.

Patzer also asked for a breakdown of the terminated employees by the department, agency, or entity for which they previously worked.

Introduced in response to the pandemic in 2020, CERB was a federal program that paid $500 per week in benefits to Canadians who either lost their jobs or whose employment was otherwise directly affected by COVID-19 due to closures or lockdowns.

Audit

Any individual who had earned at least $5,000 before taxes in 2020 or 2019 could apply for the subsidy, provided they had either lost work or had their working hours reduced as a direct result of COVID.

However, Auditor General Karen Hogan found in a December 2022 audit that, because of slim verification measures by the CRA and Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), about $4.6 billion worth of previous COVID relief payments were collected by individuals who did not meet the eligibility criteria.

She further added that about $27 billion went to individuals whose eligibility status still required confirmation.

At the time, Qualtrough told reporters that her department was still working on reclaiming the money and had sent around 1.8 million repayment notices to ineligible recipients.

While appearing before the Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources on Feb. 7, Qualtrough told MPs that she had been unaware that employees in her department were being investigated for falsely claiming CERB payments.

A total of 49 employees from her department were fired for collecting the benefit while still working at ESDC.

Marnie Cathcart contributed to this report.