The Canada Revenue Agency quietly identified 450 potential fraud cases involving its own employees claiming pandemic relief cheques while still on the federal payroll — a far cry from the soothing assurances MPs heard from the agency’s top brass at the time.Blacklock's Reporter says details emerged in a Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board ruling involving a tax auditor who made $85,000 a year but still applied for COVID-19 benefits. In that hearing, CRA assistant director of internal affairs Leon Horne-Bourgoin testified the agency launched a sweeping internal probe after media reports revealed public servants were cashing in on the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.According to the board, Horne-Bourgoin said the CRA normally handles about 150 internal investigations a year, but the COVID-19-benefit scandal triggered three times that workload. The fraud probes began in July 2023 and ran through the rest of the year..Those numbers clash sharply with what Revenue Commissioner Bob Hamilton told MPs on February 2, 2023. When asked how many employees were being investigated, Hamilton claimed he didn’t have the precise figures but insisted there were “not very many, obviously.”Committee chair Conservative MP John Williamson pushed him for an actual number, but Hamilton only promised to get back to MPs later. The CRA eventually told Parliament the tally was just 10 fraudsters.The figure didn’t stay at 10 for long. It climbed to 185, then 344. .By the time former Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau testified before the Senate national finance committee last November, she admitted the number was actually 880 cases.Bibeau said the CRA maintains “zero tolerance for fraud,” adding that employees suspected of wrongdoing faced strict consequences. She told senators that 330 employees were fired for claiming the $2,000 monthly CERB cheques meant for jobless Canadians facing eviction or foreclosure. Another 550 employees were suspended or hit with other disciplinary measures.Bibeau also confirmed that some staff implicated in the scandal no longer worked at the agency but offered no explanation.
