The Canada Revenue Agency has let go 120 employees who took advantage of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It seems like a lot of individuals were erroneously told by CRA agents that they were eligible for CERB. I chalk this up mostly to a hasty implementation of CERB, with unclear criteria for eligibility. To which, I wonder how many of these cases were actually done out of malice. That is, what is the likelihood that many of these CRA employees were just following their own faulty advice?
Didn’t they clarify the rules and told anyone to pay it back or there would be consequences? I vaguely remember something about that.
But the article states:
Any CRA employees who improperly claimed benefits will be required to pay them back if they have not already done so, the statement said.
Which makes it look like they got fired even after paying it back after receiving the clarification that they got the wrong advice originally.
Also,
The department said any employees suspected of criminality could have their cases referred to police.
Which to me implies that there are employees not suspected of criminality. Which fits into the "got told the wrong thing by CRA at the beginning" narrative.
The rule clarification was for everyone, general public who “abused” it too. Was a come clean and nothing bad will happen. The wording of the article implies that the payback is new from their investigation unfortunately.
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