PCU: Has Ottawa lost control?

Ottawa is taking significant steps to recover overpayments related to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). However, collection letters are still being sent to citizens who have been paying their debts for too long.

This is the situation that Jonathan Fong, a resident of Notre-Dame du Mont Carmel in Mauricie, denounces.

His troubles with the federal government began in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. Like 8.9 million Canadians, when he had to stop working, he turned to emergency benefits.

“I was terminated, so I applied for unemployment for that period. Two weeks later I was done and filed my return to work. To my surprise, I received $2,000 from CERB that I didn’t need. I immediately inquired about how I was going to pay for it,” Jonathan Fong explained.

A few weeks later, he paid the government back and his check was cashed in May 2020. That didn't stop the federal government from contacting him, by mail, every month, to claim the money he had already paid.

This battle with the government has become a source of increasing concern as the Canada Revenue Agency recently announced a tougher tone against bad taxpayers.

“It’s stressful. I’m afraid that at some point someone will take money from me and then I’ll have to fight again to get that money back even though it’s already been recovered. It’s a lot of pressure,” the Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel resident added.

For Trois-Rivières bloc member René Fillmore, the confusion surrounding federal services is unacceptable. “In government, we've told ourselves that there must be crooks, so we treat everyone as crooks, and that's not a good idea.”

The member even had to prepare forms to report these issues to the Canada Revenue Agency.

“This is the main demand we have received from people who say ‘we paid, let’s go’. The number of civil servants has become larger than before, about 100,000, and the services are worse. I am not accusing the officials, but it seems that the system is not working.”

“It took about two to three hours of waiting on the phone to talk to someone and looking through the file,” Mr. Fong said. “After two hours, she said, ‘Yes, the money has been paid, but one day it will stop.’”

Between March and October 2020, nearly $82 billion was disbursed under the Canada Emergency Response Grant.