The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has announced that 330 employees who “improperly” applied for and received the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) have now left the agency.
In a release Wednesday, the CRA provided a final update on an internal review launched last year aimed at identifying employees who fraudulently received benefits. The CRA said it had identified approximately 600 cases for further investigation.
When asked for an explanation, the CRA declined to confirm that 330 employees had been laid off. Instead, officials said those individuals were no longer employed by the CRA.
The CRA said in a statement that 185 cases did not result in the worker’s “termination of employment.” Of the 185 cases, 40 resulted in disciplinary action such as suspension.
In the remaining cases, “administrative action,” including “termination of review,” was taken because the employee no longer worked for the agency or was found to be a victim of identity theft, the CRA said. .
The CRA said the other 135 employees were eligible for CERB and “no disciplinary action was applied as a result of this review.”
The CRA said in a release that its employees do not automatically become ineligible for CERB.
“Because the CRA employs individuals with a variety of employment arrangements, including temporary contracts and student contracts, some individuals were eligible for CERB,” the CRA said.
The cases investigated represent a small portion of the approximately 60,000 employees who work at the CRA.
Union claims CRA took ‘aggressive approach’
Marc Briere, national president of the Tax Employees Union, said that while some cases are clear, the union believes that some employees who improperly applied for and received CERB did not do so intentionally. said.
“In other cases, like regular taxpayers, they may have had problems understanding the new program,” Briere said.
“In fact, we noticed that not everyone was fired, and some had their suspensions reduced, which shows that the CRA was aware that in some cases: [the employee] it wasn’t worth losing [their] This is what this job is for. ”
Briere said the union believes the CRA “took an aggressive approach to this file…We felt that some members were being deemed guilty without completing the final process.” ” he said.
Briere said that although the union has filed complaints, these allegations do not mean the union is arguing that employees should not face any punishment for their actions. said.
“As a union, we have an obligation to fair representation,” Briere said.
The CRA said employees who improperly received CERB will be required to repay it if they have not already done so.
