Just before the release of the report, a November 30, 2022 National Post article (CRA clawing back $3.2 billion from suspect COVID-19 aid payments, but that’s just the start, Christopher Nardi) noted the following, based on comments from two top CRA officials:
CRA has issued notices of redetermination disallowing $3.2 billion in COVID-19 benefit overpayments;
CRA sent out 825,000 notices of redetermination to individuals it suspected of receiving ineligible or excess payments from several COVID-19 benefit programs as of November 18, 2022;
post-payment reviews are set to continue until at least 2025; and
25,000 cases of fraudulent payments were tied to identity theft.
Many of the overpayments stemmed from confusion and challenges associated with the attestation-based programs.
One of the CRA representatives also noted that “we want to recover money, but we don’t want to create financial hardship” and “it’s going to be based on the capacity of each and every individual to repay.”