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Around $84 billion in COVID-19 benefits were paid out during the pandemic, the CRA claims
Published Dec 30, 2025 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read
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Canada Revenue Agency national headquarters on Mackenzie Avenue in Ottawa. Photo by Errol McGihon / Files /POSTMEDIA NETWORKArticle content
The Canada Revenue Agency is attempting to recover around $10 billion in COVID-19 benefits they say were paid out improperly.
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According to CRA documents provided to CBC News, most of that money was handed out as part of the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) — but other pandemic-related assistance programs have paid out millions, and in some cases billions, to Canadians they say weren’t eligible to receive the benefits.
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They say the recipients didn’t qualify because, in most cases, they didn’t meet minimum income requirements.
$5.41 billion owed in CERB benefit repayments alone
Around $84 billion in COVID-19 benefits were paid out during the pandemic, the CRA claims.
The CRA began collecting misappropriated COVID-19 benefits in 2022 and have so far recovered around $4 billion — less than half of the amount that’s still outstanding.
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According to a breakdown provided to CBC News, $5.41 billion is owed from misallocated CERB funds.
That’s followed by $3.2 billion owed to the Canada Recovery Benefit — an income support program meant to help self-employed or non-EI eligible Canadians.
That program ran from Sept. 2020 to Oct. 2021, providing applicants $500 per week for work lost due to the pandemic.
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Nearly half-billion in CERB cheques went to Canadians that weren’t eligible
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As well, $1.52 billion is owed to the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB,) a program meant to support Canadians unable to work in order to care for their child under 12 or other family member requiring supervised care.
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The CRA is also aiming to recover $170 million from the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, $40 million from the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit, and $1 million from the Canada Emergency Student Benefit.
Questions over eligibility
In 2020, questions were already being asked about how easily CERB benefits were being doled out.
According to figures contained within a 2020 order paper question response, the Ministry of Social Development admitted nearly half a billion dollars in CERB money was handed out to people who clearly weren’t eligible — including 221,320 people already receiving EI benefits.
“If we had kept with the same approach as for Employment Insurance, it would have been impossible to process all these claims with the speed we did,” Associate Deputy Employment Minister Benoit Robidoux said at the time.
“People would not have received their benefits. Right now where there are cases of clear fraud and we can find them early on, we block these payments.”
Even government workers couldn’t resist the easy access to money, with the CRA reporting last year they fired 330 of their own employees over “inappropriate” CERB applications.
While efforts to recover owed funds have recently ramped up, the CRA has been processing reversals and forgiveness for those eligible.
As of Nov. 30, CBC News reported, 55,000 people have seen around $621 million in reversals processed.
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