Nearly $12 million in CERB payments sent to applicants with foreign addresses

The federal government sent nearly $12 million in Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments to more than 1,600 applicants with foreign addresses during the first seven months of the pandemic.

Documents tabled in the House of Commons last week show that 1,610 people received the pandemic financial aid benefit despite applying with a mailing address outside of Canada.

The government paid those individuals a total of $11.9 million by the time the program was replaced by a new benefits system in September 2020.

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The now-defunct CERB program was rolled out quickly at the beginning of the pandemic. The government opted for few upfront validation checks for the $500-a-week cheques 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.

Though at the time the eligibility requirements clearly stated that the benefit was only available to workers residing in Canada, the document states “while CERB required individuals to reside inside Canada to qualify, some individuals may have been out of the country on a temporary basis, or working in Canada on a temporary basis.”

A student who was temporarily abroad or someone who could not make it back into the country due to the pandemic restrictions, for example, may have been eligible.

Nearly half, or 720, of the 1,610 individuals applied with a mailing address based in the United States. Another 90 listed mailing addresses in the U.K., 80 each in India and France, 60 in Australia, 50 in Ireland and the rest in a dozen other countries not listed in the document.

This comes as the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is sending out a new round of letters to pandemic aid recipients to verify they were eligible for the help, warning of the potential need to repay what they received.

According to The Canadian Press, 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.

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.

- With files from The Canadian Press