Just because one is not eligible for pandemic relief benefits doesn’t mean one cannot collect the available money, the Manitoba Court of Appeal has ruled, said Blacklock’s Reporter..A Winnipeg man who made such a claim, though he wasn’t eligible, doesn’t have to repay the money, after the court accepted a remark by a Department of Employment spokesperson to the Toronto Star as evidence..“When the Canada Emergency Response Benefit program was implemented there were no prescribed rules for the treatment of the CERB received by recipients of income assistance benefits,” wrote the court, that noted, “Provincial and territorial governments took differing approaches.”.Nigel Cann, a self-employed artist on welfare, claimed pandemic relief intended for the jobless. The court was told Cann cashed a $2,000 CERB cheque but kept only $740 after realizing his mistake and returned the balance to the Canada Revenue Agency..Parliament on March 25, 2020 passed the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act that offered $2,000 a month to jobless “workers” who had lost income and “stopped working as a result of COVID-19.” Manitoba’s Social Services Appeal Board deducted the $740 from Cann’s welfare benefits..Cann argued his CERB cheque was a “liquid asset” that should not be counted as income. The court agreed, citing an April 14, 2020 article in the Toronto Star when the newspaper quoted Marielle Hossack, a spokesperson for the Department of Employment, as saying Canadians already receiving social assistance “are not penalized.”.“Our government believes the CERB needs to be considered exempt by provinces and territories in the same way as the Canada Child Benefit (is) to ensure vulnerable Canadians do not fall behind,” said Hossack..The CERB is taxable, while the Canada Child Benefit is not..“It was a one-time payment,” wrote the Manitoba Court. Pandemic relief did not have “the character of regularity” of income, it said..A total 278,360 Manitobans applied for Emergency Response Benefit cheques, though the province’s pre-pandemic workforce numbered only 682,700. Nationwide a total 8,899,170 Canadians claimed CERB payments. The cost of the program originally budgeted at $24 billion rose to a total $81.64 billion..New Democrat MPs sought amnesty for ineligible claimants, including welfare recipients who had not lost wages..“Many people decided to take the CERB because of higher costs, for example, of keeping their kids home from school,” MP Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre) told the Commons Human Resources committee last December 10..“We know there are a number of kids in care who received the CERB and who are now mobilizing together to ask for CERB amnesty,” said MP Gazan..British Columbia, allowed welfare recipients to collect CERB cheques without penalty while all other provinces had full or partial claw-backs.
