More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The Canada Revenue Agency is sending out a new round of letters to pandemic aid recipients to verify they were eligible for the help, and warning of potential need for repayments.
It's the second time the agency is mailing Canada Emergency Response Benefit recipients as part of a process to verify the eligibility of the millions of Canadians who received the $500-a-week benefit.
The CRA sent out more than 441,000 letters to CERB recipients near the end of 2020 asking them to verify they met eligibility rules for the payments.
Thousands more are going out beginning Thursday, this time targeting recipients who may have earned more than the $1,000 a month the Liberals allowed beginning in mid-April 2020.
The agency says the people who are receiving letters have tax information that suggest they earned too much income during periods when they received aid.
The letters say the CRA will work on flexible repayment plans for anyone who has to give back some of the money, without interest, but warns that won't be the case for those who don't respond to the government missive.
The federal government quickly rolled out the CERB at the onset of the pandemic, only asking applicants to attest they were eligible.
The government opted for few upfront validation checks to speed up payments during lockdowns over March and April 2020 when three million jobs were lost.
In the end, the CERB doled out $81.64 billion to 8.9 million recipients.
The government has long said that officials would review claims after the fact to claw back wrongful payments.
Following a critical review by auditor general Karen Hogan last March about missed opportunities to prevent fraud and wrongful payments, the government said it would spend four years tracking down every wrongful payment.
"The few letters that will go out this week, it's the beginning. We'll start with a few thousand," said Marc Lemieux, the CRA's assistant commissioner in charge of collections and verification. "Eventually, though, for a program of that size, I think it's hundreds of thousands of letters that we'll have to send and ask people to validate their eligibility."
Letters sent in late 2020 asked some recipients to prove they met one criteria for the CERB: that they earned at least $5,000 in the preceding 12-month period.
The letters, however, caused concerns among low-income earners who feared not being able to repay, and interpreted the CRA's message as setting a deadline for repayment by the end of that year.
The agency appears to have learned from that experience and has massaged the message this time around.
Lemieux said the letters this time say that the agency has some information as opposed to none, and wants extra details to validate someone's CERB payment.
"People may have made mistakes, their situation may have changed during the period for which they were receiving the benefits," he said.
No one at this point is being asked to repay. They'll have 45 days to contact the CRA, after which the agency may decide that the person owes the money back. Lemieux said the agency plans to be flexible on repayment plans for any amounts owing.
"We may require some information about their financial situation, and then we'll see with them what is possible, and we'll see if we could accommodate them," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2022.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
Devastating tornadoes tore across parts of eastern Nebraska and northeast Texas Friday as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event ramped up in the central United States, injuring at least three people.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Donald Trump's defence team attacked the credibility Friday of the prosecution's first witness in his hush money case, seeking to discredit testimony detailing a scheme between Trump and a tabloid to bury negative stories to protect the Republican's 2016 presidential campaign.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.