From April 2020 to June 2022, Masse received more than $41,000 in government benefits — only to later get a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency saying he wasn't eligible for the money, and that he had to pay it back.

According to the CRA, Masse did not meet the minimum net earnings of $5,000.

"I was stunned. I couldn't believe it," said Masse. "I would have never applied for anything that I did not qualify for."

In early 2024, after months of back and forth, the CRA agreed he was entitled to some of the money. But he remains on the hook for about $27,000.

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[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The government made it clear auto approval would happen and they would confirm later. I guess its kinda a cover your ass policy but some people urgently needed the funds.

The government didn't make an error in their favor, the applicants played the game without knowing the rules

[–] Kelsenellenelvial@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

I’d interested to see how much outstanding is actually people gaming the system, vs people that got caught up in a system that was intentionally designed to get money in people m’s hands and figure it out later. In my wife’s case, she qualified for CERB and received it, then the wage subsidy program came out and applied retroactively. She was made retroactively ineligible with no clear way to return the excess and when CRA dod reach out for repayment they made the process much more painful than it should have been.

Then there’s things like the benefits would be front-loaded, so presumably anybody that was laid off and then found employment would have ended up with some amount owing. Somme people that would have been eligible for regular EI got moved to CERB and were then found in-eligible for that. There was also a lot confusion about how it applied to things like seasonal workers or people in positions that may or may not have ended during the time that CERB was available.