TRUDEAU SHRUGS OFF ‘FEW’ CHEATS
Says fraud being monitored amid security criticism
Prime Minister Trudeau defended the government’s liberal approach to handing out emergency benefits Thursday, saying Ottawa would have “paralyzed” the system and deprived millions of jobless Canadians if it had rigorously checked every application it received.
Memos obtained by the National Post tell officials to approve Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments even if they suspect abuse, or if the person quit voluntarily or was fired for cause.
Trudeau did not directly address those guidelines when asked about them at his daily pandemic press briefing. But he insisted the government is monitoring for fraud and will recoup improper payments eventually. And he said abuse likely represents just a “few” people among the almost eight million applicants.
“Getting that help to the 99 per cent of Canadians who needed it quickly and rapidly — even if it meant accepting that one or two per cent might make fraudulent claims — was the choice that we gladly made,” he said outside Rideau Cottage. “We should not slow down or paralyze the system, and prevent millions of Canadians from getting the help they really need because of the one per cent of fraudulent applicants.”
He stressed the government does still plan to pursue inappropriate payments, though didn’t specify how.
“We have put in strong measures to ensure that anyone who is trying to defraud the system will get caught and there will be consequences,” said the prime minister.
“But that was not our priority. Our priority was helping people immediately and the fraud measures will kick in in the coming months.”
Trudeau’s explanation did little, though, to convince some outside and opposition critics, with one spending watchdog arguing that he “missed the point” entirely.
No one is questioning the value of the program or the need to hand out cheques expeditiously, said Aaron Wudrick, national director of the Taxpayers Federation of Canada. Nor was it necessary to investigate every claim as it came in, he said.
“(But) we know from civil servants themselves there are files being flagged … so why is the government not doing anything about it?” asked Wudrick. “If there’s reason to suspect abuse, they should be following up on it. … Essentially there’s an open invitation now to anyone who wants to defraud the program.”
The government must be transparent about how many possible cheaters have been identified, and what orders were issued to bureaucrats handling the claims, said Conservative MP Dan Albas.
“The law is the law. Did the government tell public servants to ignore the CERB Act that was passed by Parliament?” he said. “We are asking for some basic answers and accountability from this prime minister and government, and they have failed to address substantively any of these questions.”
One official did provide some answers late Thursday, telling the House of Commons finance committee that, by early last month, the government had identified 200,000 people who, mistakenly or not, had applied for and received the emergency benefit from both the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which are jointly administering the program.
That could mean they received $400 million too much in total.
All those people who received double payments will be contacted and the extra money they received “will be actively recovered,” Cliff Groen, an ESDC assistant deputy minister, told the committee.
A source familiar with the process, however, said it would be impossible for those people to have received the payments twice, as the CERB computer system would not allow it.
The person, not authorized to speak about internal matters, said the 200,000 are suspected cases of fraud or abuse.
CERB provides $2,000 a month to people who are out of work because of the pandemic, so long as they made $5,000 within the previous 12 months and did not quit voluntarily.
The government says it has received requests from almost 8 million people, paying out $30 billion so far.
It has always maintained that its priority would be disbursing the funds rapidly with few questions asked.
But the memos obtained by the Post seem to take that approach a step further.
One says ESDC staff should approve payments and not refer cases to the Employment Insurance integrity branch if they detect potential abuse. Sources familiar with the program say possible fraud seems to be common.
Another set of instructions, issued Tuesday, tells ESDC staff Canadians should still receive CERB even if records indicate the applicant quit voluntarily or was fired for possible misconduct — seemingly in contradiction to the legislation.
Adjudication of what the document refers to as “contentious issues” is to be deferred until later.
Although the government says that fraud usually amounts to one per cent of regular EI files, a CBC report quoted unnamed Canada Revenue Agency officials as saying fraud in the more risky CERB program could reach two to three per cent of claims.
Based on about seven million approved requests, a two-per-cent fraud rate would mean 140,000 applications for CERB — and $280 million a month in payments.