National Treasury Secretary Diane Lebouthillier judges that the Auditor General (AG) in her report, presented Tuesday morning, grossly overestimated the amounts that would have been overpaid during the COVID-19 pandemic.
AG Karen Hogan estimates overpayments at $4.6 billion, but adds that the government should take a closer look at the whopping $27.4 billion in additional payments to individuals and businesses.
While it is “too early” to provide an official figure on overpayments, Minister Lebouthillier assured that the results of recovery efforts at this stage “point to a higher level of compliance than that estimated by the VG”.
“We can therefore expect an actual overpayment much lower than the figures announced in the report,” Ms Lebouthillier said during a press conference in Parliament.
Ms Hogan said she was “concerned at the lack of rigor in verifying and collecting payments after they have been paid” and recommended the government develop a broader plan to identify overpayments, but the minister wanted reassurance.
“The Revenue Agency is extremely strict in their work,” she said. “The verification work has started. The letters have been sent. We will do this on a case-by-case basis,” Ms Lebouthillier said, “confident” the Government could recover the amounts.
The priority was to provide help quickly when the workers urgently needed it.
That’s the whole problem, Conservatives believe.
According to them, the VG report “confirms” what they have been saying since the pandemic began. “Financial waste due to lack of control […] contributed to the cost of living crisis,” they claimed in a press release.
By focusing performance standards on timeliness, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has opened the door to abuse and waste.
This was stated by Pierre Paul-Hus, lieutenant of the Conservative Party in Quebec, at a press conference with several colleagues.
“The Liberal government’s lack of scrutiny, as noted by the AG, has undoubtedly contributed to this mess that taxpayers are having to pay back,” he said.
Yves-François Blanchet believes that the fact that the government has structured benefits to be distributed quickly is “understandable” given the context of a public health emergency.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois called on the government to implement the report’s recommendations. He “must not delegate to Mrs. Lebouthillier to go to the Auditor General and insist on it, otherwise the practice of auditing becomes a little childish”.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh believes the government should focus its efforts on people who have blatantly cheated the system. He wants the CRA to shine a spotlight on the “big fish,” the already successful companies that have benefited from government generosity.
“Generally, I would like to emphasize that it was an extraordinary time and we had to take extraordinary measures to help people,” he said, referring to the context of the time.