From April 2020 to June 2022, Masse received more than $41,000 in government benefits — only to later get a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency saying he wasn’t eligible for the money, and that he had to pay it back.
According to the CRA, Masse did not meet the minimum net earnings of $5,000.
“I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it,” said Masse. “I would have never applied for anything that I did not qualify for.”
In early 2024, after months of back and forth, the CRA agreed he was entitled to some of the money. But he remains on the hook for about $27,000.
My parents are in a kerfuffle with some agency over COVID funds.
My dad got laid off around the time of COVID for unrelated reasons, not because of COVID or shutdowns in anyway.
He then applied for employment insurance since he qualified.
Without anyone asking, he somehow was instead put him on some sort of COVID EI thing instead of regular EI
Then later on someone decided the COVID EI thing needs to be reimbursed or something so they are asking for all the money back despite the fact he would have gotten more money from regular EI and never asked for the COVID stuff.
It’s been like 4 years now and they are still trying to get the money back and won’t even talk to them to try and fix the situation, just keep sending letters.
At the time, the messaging was very clear that receiving the benefit did not mean you were eligible, since it was more important to get the money in peoples’ hands quickly. I honestly don’t have a lot of sympathy for ineligible people who now have to pay it back
I could have gotten a ton of cash too, but I also was ineligible, so I did the smart thing and didn’t apply.
It was very obvious guidelines and they, like you mentioned, clearly stated that it was auto approval and confirm later.
I’m tired of people trying to game the system and then act like a victim.
The person in the article is seeming to dig their heels in using bad logic.
I would not apply for something that I would not qualify for.
I applied for the funds.
Therefore I qualify for the funds.I do, why can’t we just consider this a trial project for UBI? I’d imagine the majority of the people who received the money are probably those who’d be screwed being made to repay it all
Why is it that we go through so much trouble raking back money in these sorts of programs for little people but don’t seem to think twice when forgiving billions in debts for large corporations?
Why would I want to pay for UBI for only the most selfish entitled fucks in the country who wipe their asses with the rules I follow?.
There were actual trials for UBI and this had literally nothing that made it a trial or could possibly prove it’s effectiveness.
I don’t mind paying my taxes, but I pay way to much to watch my hard started money get handed to people abusing a once in a generation emergency for their own selfishness and gain.
Full stop doesn’t follow a question mark
Full stop doesn’t follow a question mark
What a weird and absolutely pointlessly insignificant thing to complain about.
I’m just being petty cause they came into a thread and made a stupid pointless complaint about “grammar”
I personally don’t give a shit, but if they’re going to come at people for grammar, at least fucking know how to do grammar in the first place, y’know?
Personally, I think Prescriptivism is only applicable on formal contexts, where people can’t just be like “what did you mean there btw?” in places where funky grammar makes shit unclear…
To me it just looked like a common typo.
why can’t we just consider this a trial project for UBI?
Because it wasn’t UBI… the U is rather important there.
Why is it that we go through so much trouble raking back money in these sorts of programs for little people but don’t seem to think twice when forgiving billions in debts for large corporations?
I can only speak for myself here, but I am also very much against forgiving large corp debts
If everyone gets to keep the cash to we then send equivalent cash to everyone else who didn’t apply at the time because they knew they didn’t qualify? Or do we just reward the people who made a mistake / lied and screw over the people who were smart enough / honest to not apply?
The Canadian Revenue Agency is incredibly incompetent. It’s shameful. This COVID benefits fiasco is only one example.
My in-laws have had problems with the CRA because they screwed up in their documentation about their taxes. They lost documents that had been sent to them during some office move or something. They have sent mail for 5 years where we’d receive up to 5 letters per week about either them owing money or the CRA owing them money or that everything balanced out, etc. Non stop. It was insane how many letters we received. The absolute waste in paper was incredible.
Then my in-laws sold a property they had here. And because they are non-residents and they had all these problems with the CRA, the CRA decided to withhold the money from the sale of the property until everything was resolved. That’s several hundreds of thousands of dollars stuck in limbo. It’s been 3-4 years now. And I think after a certain number of years, if it hasn’t been resolved the CRA keeps the money. That’s a lifetime worth of savings that just gets seized because of their incompetence.
Their notary is going nuts trying to reach the CRA and get some answers, but nobody picks up. It’s wild!
Yikes, will probably only get worse with our current government gutting the services. Good luck :(
Remember, COVID benefits to working people = claw back every last cent paid out. Loans paid to large multinational corporations = forgive those loans! The poor corpos just needed the extra money.
I took a single 2k cheque late 2021 and have had zero issues
Dude in the article clearly didn’t do a risk assessment
No, he clearly did not qualify.
Determining whether he qualified or not, that’s the risk he took
Pretty simple. He did not make the required $5000 the previous year to qualify.
And still he took the jump
Either poor or zero risk assessment. Man’s probably thought “hey free money” and now wishes he weighed the costs
This shit is why I didn’t apply for the COVID benefit.
I guess you could have applied knowing they’d come for it, and then toss it in a GIC for interest, unless they’re charging interest too.
That’s an asshole move.
That’s also how rich people are rich, by being assholes.
That’s fair.
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NGL if the government makes an error in your favor they should just write it off and print the equivalent amount of new money.
The government made it clear auto approval would happen and they would confirm later. I guess its kinda a cover your ass policy but some people urgently needed the funds.
The government didn’t make an error in their favor, the applicants played the game without knowing the rules
Write it off yes, print more money no
