The government has had to cancel at least $246 million in debts for thousands of Canadians it initially claimed had received pandemic benefits for which they weren't eligible. Since 2022, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been collecting money from Canadians the government says received benefits — such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) — in error. The CRA told CBC News that at the end of last year, it had collected roughly $1.8 billion in erroneous pandemic benefit payments. The CRA told CBC News that as of April, it has reversed the debts of roughly 27,000 individuals who originally had been deemed ineligible but later had their eligibility verified. The CRA told CBC News that as of April of this year it has reversed the debts of roughly 27,000 individuals who had originally been deemed ineligible but later had their eligibility verified.
