Ottawa didn’t try to identify staff who illegally used CERB

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OTTAWA – Only two of over 100 federal government departments and agencies say they made efforts to identify and sanction staff who illegitimately applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

According to data tabled in the House of Commons Monday, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) are the only two government organizations that investigated and ultimately fired some of their employees who simultaneously received CERB while being employed by the federal government.

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They are incidentally also the two organizations that administered the $2,000-per-week benefit that was implemented as an emergency financial aid for workers who lost their job due to COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

In June, Conservative MP Adam Chambers asked each government organization if they had initiated or requested a review to ensure none of their workers had made “possible fraudulent claims” for CERB.

The government’s response, tabled in the House of Commons Monday, shows that all but ESDC and CRA said they had undertaken no such review and hadn’t asked the tax agency to do one either.
In the document,

In the document, the CRA said that 289 employees had either resigned or been fired as of June 17 because they had received the unemployment benefit while working for the tax authority.

“This number may continue to increase” as the agency continues its review, it noted in the document. Last year, the agency said it was investigating 600 workers it suspected had also applied for CERB.

In the same document, ESDC — which also administered a portion of CERB alongside its Service Canada arm — said it had revoked the security clearance of 55 of its employees who had lied during their CERB application, effectively firing them.

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“ESDC discovered that some departmental employees had misrepresented their employment circumstances to claim COVID-19 Emergency Benefits for which they were not eligible,” ESDC wrote in the document.

“These employees no longer met a condition of employment following the revocation of their security status and were therefore terminated.”

But the vast majority of over 100 other federal agencies and departments who also responded to Chambers’ question said the responsibility of verifying CERB eligibility lies with CRA and ESDC. They also noted that they did not have access to data on who applied for the emergency benefit in 2020.

Most also revealed that they did not “request a review” by either CRA or ESDC in the hopes of spotting and sanctioning employees who may have made fraudulent CERB applications.

In many cases, departments and agencies said they did not conduct or ask for a review because they weren’t aware of any employees “who would have made fraudulent claims for CERB.”

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The Treasury Board Secretariat, the department that acts as the “employer” of the public service, responded in the document that any reviews of CERB eligibility are conducted by ESDC and CRA. It did not say whether any of its employees had been sanctioned for fraudulently applying for CERB.

In a statement, Conservative MP Michael Barrett lambasted the Liberals for sending out billions in suspected COVID-19 aid program overpayments and not doing everything possible to identify fraudulent claims.

“Years after the pandemic, Trudeau’s total mismanagement, chaos and disorder is still costing Canadians. It comes as no surprise that his waste and lack of respect for tax dollars has spread throughout his government,” Barrett wrote.

“Canadians have a right to know where their hard-earned tax dollars have gone, and whether these billions of vaporized tax dollars will ever be recovered,” he added.

In a statement, CRA spokesperson Benoit Sabourin said the agency didn’t have the authority to review another department’s employees for CERB claims of its own volition.

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“The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has no authority to specifically investigate whether employees in other federal departments or agencies wrongfully claimed the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) while working,” he wrote in an email.

“That said, the CRA initiated post-payment verifications in January 2022, which apply to all Canadians who received CERB, including federal public servants. The CRA continues to conduct these verifications to ensure all claimants met the eligibility requirements,” he added.

In a 2023 report on COVID-19 support programs, Auditor General Karen Hogan found that the government had made a minimum of $27 billion in suspected overpayments through a dozen benefits it set up during the pandemic.

She also found that the government faced a monumental task recouping the money and that it was already running behind as of last year.

National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com

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