An Ontario woman on welfare due to a disability owes the federal government $14,000 after provincial guidelines required her to apply for pandemic benefits, only to discover she was ineligible for them. I lost it.
Email communications reviewed by the Globe and Mail show the woman believed she was not eligible for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), but received social assistance through the Ontario Disability Support Program. It turned out that he was told that he had to apply as a condition of receiving the award. (ODSP). The Globe is not revealing the woman’s identity because she fears the repercussions of speaking publicly about her situation.
The woman said in an interview that the situation is causing her great pain and sleepless nights.
Anti-poverty groups say the case illustrates flaws in provincial regulation of social assistance programs in Ontario and other jurisdictions, which ensure that welfare recipients are not actually receiving benefits. You are urged to pursue other financial resources that are available to you, even if you are not sure whether you have them or not. You can qualify for them.
Inadequate wording in provincial regulations has led to many low-income Canadians across the country mistakenly applying for federal pandemic relief when caseworkers tried to enact their understanding of provincial guidelines. advocates say.
“This is a story I’ve heard over and over again, and it doesn’t just come from Ontario,” said Leila Sarangi, national director of Campaign 2000, a pan-Canadian movement focused on child poverty. . She said the Ontario woman’s case is consistent with testimony provided by many others about social assistance.
The woman was told to apply for CERB in spring 2020, shortly after Ottawa rolled out benefits to help Canadians unable to work due to the pandemic, according to emails seen by the Globe.
During a long exchange, she repeatedly objected to the idea that she should apply to CERB. She said she did not believe she was entitled to it and was worried she would have to pay it back.
But her ODSP worker was adamant. “This is not an option in the application, it is what we are requesting,” they wrote. The official further stated that women are responsible for applying for CERB funds as ODSP recipients.
The woman, who has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, anxiety and depression, said that when she heard those words, she knew she would lose her only source of income, her ODSP benefits, if she didn’t apply for CERB.
When the federal government established CERB, it decided to require only limited eligibility checks for applicants in order to simplify the enrollment process and help provide financial assistance to households quickly. Ottawa warned that it would carry out a more detailed review and require repayment from anyone found ineligible for benefits.
In January 2023, the woman’s fears were realized when she learned she was one of those ineligible for pandemic assistance.
The Canada Revenue Agency valued her debt at $14,000, the full amount she received from CERB. That’s because she didn’t have an income of at least $5,000 and her job hadn’t stopped due to the pandemic, two eligibility requirements for her program.
The woman, who earns just over $15,000 a year, said after much effort in seeking financial relief, she was able to secure a $50 monthly repayment plan with the CRA. The tax authorities also agreed not to withhold payments of other government benefits to offset her CERB liability.
However, the CRA added that even after reviewing documentation from state caseworkers showing that they were instructed to apply for pandemic benefits, they are still demanding that their entire CERB debt be repaid.
Meanwhile, the woman said it took the intervention of lawmakers to get her back thousands of dollars in state funds that were withheld by ODSP administrators when her income temporarily increased due to CERB during the pandemic. .
This person said the money was used to reduce the federal debt. However, the documents show that she has not been able to recover the housing subsidy that was also withheld while she was on CERB. ODSP staff have so far denied responsibility for what happened, according to emails reviewed by the Globe.
“Social assistance recipients should pursue all available financial resources,” Kristen Tedesco, a spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS), which oversees ODSP, said in an email. If social assistance recipients were eligible to receive the CERB (e.g. if they lost their job due to COVID-19), they were expected to make reasonable efforts to receive the benefit. ”
Social assistance recipients who received a CERB overpayment and had their welfare benefits reduced as a result of the federal government’s pandemic benefits “may be reassessed, resulting in a retrospective reduction in social assistance recipients.” There is a possibility of defaulting on payments,” Tedesco said.
The department did not directly address questions about how it would handle cases in which welfare recipients were asked to return pandemic benefits they applied for under the direction of caseworkers.
John Stapleton, an Ontario government consultant and former social assistance benefit designer, said the province’s ODSP regulations require caseworkers to reduce or terminate social assistance for recipients who don’t pursue resources they believe are available. He said that he was effectively giving him authority.
The CRA referred a request for comment to Employment and Social Development Canada, which designed the CERB. ESDC spokeswoman Maja Stefanowska said in her emailed statement that early in the pandemic, the department encouraged states and territories to waive the CERB as income for determining eligibility for social assistance benefits. He said he was doing so. Only British Columbia, Yukon and the Northwest Territories waived all federal benefits.
Ontario only partially exempted CERB income in order to maintain equity between social assistance recipients and non-social assistance recipients. MCCSS Public Relations Officer Paul Doig said.