Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being with us today.
Earlier today, at the public accounts meeting, I spoke at length with Deputy Minister Flack and a number of others concerning the half a billion dollars that was paid to CERB recipients who doubled up or double-dipped, depending on how you want to describe it. They applied for both CERB and the EI. I am sure you'll remember this.
He expressed that there were about half a million people, 500,000 people, who did this double-dipping, so to speak. When I asked why that wasn't communicated, it was mentioned to me that it was, in fact, communicated on the ESDC website that people were to apply for only one, not both.
My concern, however, Minister, is that it caused a lot of additional cost—half a billion dollars—and I know some of that has been recouped and that CRA is going to be working to recoup a lot of the fraud that has happened with CERB. It's going to take years, we know.
As far as I am aware, is it...? You and your deputy minister knew that this was going to happen and that it was a technology issue, and you knew that people were going to be able to double-dip.
My question is, then: Why wasn't it more effectively communicated to the public that they should not be applying? On their end, 500,000 people made this mistake and applied for both. We know there were daily press conferences and every opportunity to communicate it. Can you explain to the committee why that was not taken more seriously?