Disgraced Cinar founder Weinberg received CERB money

Returned cheque he got while on parole for $123-million fraud conviction

Despite the fact he is still serving a nine-year sentence for pulling off a massive fraud involving more than $123 million invested in his company, disgraced Cinar founder Ronald Weinberg received money from the CERB, which is supposed to help people who lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the summary of a recent Parole Board of Canada decision, Weinberg, 69, applied for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and received money from it while on parole from the sentence he received in 2016 in the longest criminal trial in Canadian history. But Weinberg realized receiving the benefit was “questionable” and “morally wrong” and sent the money back.

The CERB carries a budget of $60 billion and as of June 4 the federal government had paid out more than $43.5 billion. Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the government would extend it for another eight weeks.

The program has been widely criticized for being prone to fraudsters. Earlier this month Canada Revenue Agency reported it had received more than 190,000 repayments of the benefit from people who felt they did not qualify for it.

According to an article published in the Journal de Montréal in May, guards at Quebec detention centres have intercepted CERB cheques sent to more than a dozen men serving prison time.

“Recently, as part of a supervision meeting, you informed your case management team (CMT) that you had made an online application for the Canada Emergency

Response Benefit,” the parole board wrote in its decision. “You explained why you made this application but your CMT was of the opinion that you did not qualify for this benefit.

“Considering that you are currently serving a sentence for fraud offences, you were met in a disciplinary meeting. In the following days, you acknowledged that your request for financial assistance to the government was questionable, as you were largely in a position to support yourself. You were embarrassed about the situation and you wanted to restore the relationship of trust with your CMT and the board. You received the money but you sent it back to Canada Revenue Agency with a letter explaining why you were reimbursing that amount.

“According to your CMT, this event gives a glimpse of a certain capacity for deception and manipulation with your version of events.”

Weinberg and his now-deceased wife, Micheline Charest, founded Cinar in 1976 and built it into a company that was generating more than $27 million annually by 1993.

Weinberg’s case management team, the people who prepare an offender for parole, recommended a special condition be imposed on Weinberg while he remains on parole.

The condition called for him to “not benefit from any form of financial aid granted by the government, except with the authorization of his parole officer.”

But the Parole Board of Canada determined it was not necessary.