More than $9M in COVID-19 disability payments sent to dead people

Ottawa -

The federal government sent more than $9 million worth of COVID-19 disability cheques to estates of which the recipient of the money had died before the pandemic.

New documents tabled in the House of Commons in response to a written question by Conservative MP Jamie Schmale also show that 4,637 people with addresses outside of Canada received the benefit.

In June 2020, Ottawa announced a one-time payment of up to $600 for persons living with a disability, to help offset additional pandemic-related costs. Eligible recipients included Canadians who had a valid 2020 Disability Tax Credit (DTC) certificate and those entitled to the Canada Pension Plan Disability, Quebec Pension Plan Disability, or one of the disability support programs administered by Veterans Affairs Canada.

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Recipients weren’t required to apply for this benefit, instead the money flowed through existing programs. As of April 21, more than 1.6 million Canadians have accessed it.

A response by Employment and Social Development Canada notes that while measures were taken to ensure a “detailed review and careful analysis” of data to confirm eligibility, in some cases, information “may not have been up to date because the government did not receive the individual’s updated personal information, or because of late or incomplete tax filing.”

For this reason, 15,409 payments were made to people who were eligible through the DTC alone, the DTC and one of the programs under Veterans Affairs Canada, or solely through the latter but had died prior to the pandemic being declared. These benefits totaled $9,208,500.

The department says they will conduct a fulsome review of the relief distribution to identify payment errors, and that any overpayments will be accrued as “debts owed to the Crown.”

The document states, however, that because the DTC is accessible for the entire calendar year, estates won’t have to pay back the amount regardless of when in 2020 the recipient died.

In March, Canada’s auditor general commended the government’s efforts to get money – specifically the popular Canada Emergency Response Benefit – out the door quickly to Canadians who had been impacted by the pandemic, but cautioned that less rigorous eligibility screening did lead to cases of abuse.

CTVNews.ca reported in April that a Canadian family that’s lived in New Zealand for the past 18 years received the one-time disability payment addressed to their daughter who died in 2009.