More than 7 million Canadians have applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit — but some of them shouldn’t actually be getting the $2,000-per-month payment. And those receiving the money who aren’t entitled to it could be putting their own financial futures at risk, CBC News has learned.
More than 7 million Canadians have applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit — but CBC News has learned that some of them shouldn’t actually be getting the $2,000-per-month payment.
And those receiving the money who aren’t entitled to it could be putting their own financial futures at risk.
One Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) employee said she deals regularly with people who aren’t qualified to receive the benefit but are getting it anyway.
She said she spoke with a senior collecting a pension who applied for CERB on behalf of herself and her two disabled adult children.
“I noticed all three of them, living in the same household, are getting two $2,000 cheques,” she told CBC News. (The second cheques are retroactive payments.)
“So, $12,000 all on the same day. None of them were eligible.”
CBC News is not disclosing the CRA employee’s identity because she said she fears punishment for speaking publicly about what she’s seen.
‘Laughing in my face’
To qualify for the CERB, an applicant must be a Canadian resident over 15 years of age who has been forced to stop working because of the pandemic. The applicant also must have earned a minimum of $5,000 over the last 12 months and must expect to make less than $1,000 a month while collecting the benefit.
In many cases, people who don’t qualify for CERB are being encouraged or even pressured into applying by family and friends, said the source.
“When I quiz them about it, there’s a variety of answers, from laughing in my face [to] trying to establish that there’s some loophole,” she said.
Few realize that they’ll have to pay taxes on the additional income and could see clawbacks of other benefits, such as tax credits or the Guaranteed Income Supplement, the source said.
Some inmates at a jail in Trois-Rivières, Que., have been sent CERB cheques, according to Radio-Canada. Correctional Service officers intercepted the payments when they arrived at the prison.
The federal government said it is aware of that report and maintains such errors would be caught later by CRA.
Ontario credit counsellor John Cockburn said he’s also seeing people applying for the emergency benefit who are not enti