On Wednesday, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) reported that 190,000 repayments of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) were made by Canadians who were not eligible for the aid.

Jean-Yves Duclos, President of the Treasury Board, said “the vast majority of Canadian are honest people” and the “vast majority” of errors were done in good faith.

“Canadians didn’t have the ability to understand perfectly a new program and they applied, sometimes twice, and they received payments in mistake,” Duclos said. “It’s understandable, given that Canadians are honest people...that many of them have already reimbursed their payments.”

“If those reimbursements haven’t been made, there will be no penalties because, as I said, in the vast majority of cases the reimbursement that will be made will be for payments that have been asked for in good faith.”

When asked why it is necessary to introduce penalties and criminal charges for those who were found to have cheated the CERB system, Duclos said there is a “small minority” of fraudsters who take advantage of these situations.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-covid19-canada-latest-updates-190048955.html