How Much Did Canadians Lose Due to Covid Relief?

By Jinsh Rayaroth Kunnummal.

One MP wants to know how much money Canadians lost in benefits this year. New Democrats MP Daniel Blaikie is asking the government to make that information public.

New Democrats MP, Daniel Blaikie wrote a letter to the finance minister Christia Freeland to look into who lost the most in benefits this year. In the letter, Blaikie says the Liberals didn’t give a clear warning about the impacts of collecting both Canada Emergency Response Benefit and Canada Recovery Benefit when the officials first became aware of the possible issue. This resulted in some Canadians losing their other benefits.

Earlier, the Canadian government rolled out a beneficiary program called Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) which thousands of people benefitted from. During the pandemic, these programs helped those people to survive. However, there were allegations of misusing these funds by many people. As the Canadian government considers these CERB and CRB funds as income, many people either lost or reduced their benefits. That is exactly what Blaikie is asking in his letter to make it public how much they lost in benefits this year.

Since the government stopped the CRB in October 2021, this new knowledge that people going to know has much more significance than ever before.