Madam Speaker, at the start of this pandemic almost a year ago, many Canadian workers suddenly lost their work. Millions found themselves without an income and with no way to pay for rent or food. The Liberal government suggested that we could fix that with tweaks to the employment insurance system. The NDP pointed out that most Canadian workers did not even qualify for EI because they are self-employed. They are artists, musicians, or contract workers, or workers in the gig economy. Most of them make modest incomes, but are proud that they can work and make enough to get by.
The NDP suggested that all these workers should receive $2,000 per month to keep their lives together, so they could keep their homes and keep food on the table, and thankfully the government ended up agreeing with us and CERB was born. The Prime Minister said repeatedly that the government would always be there for these workers. When nine million workers applied for CERB, they had to attest that they had made more than $5,000 in total income in the last 12 months. Now we hear that 400,000 of these workers who applied for CERB in good faith and met those criteria have received letters demanding that they repay thousands of dollars in CERB payments. They received those letters just before Christmas. Many of them simply do not have the money to repay, and they should not have to. They followed the rules.
The bill this House voted on to create CERB defined those eligible for support as “a person who...for 2019 or in the 12-month period preceding the day on which they make an application under section 5, has a total income of at least $5,000”. The CRA website listed the eligible sources of income to include income from self-employment. That is the bill that I and other members of the House voted for. It clearly stated “total income”, not “net income” and not “taxable income”. Now the government has changed the rules to say that the $5,000 should be net income.
One of my constituents, Carol, made just under $10,000 in that previous year, but the CRA now says that she made just under $5,000, a few dollars less than the limit, so she was one of the ones who got a letter asking her to repay her CERB supports. It was Carol I was talking about in my question for the Prime Minister, and it was his unhelpful answer that triggered this adjournment debate. Carol was so disappointed with the Prime Minister's reply that she wrote him a long, desperate letter outlining why she had applied for CERB, why she was qualified to receive it and why she cannot possibly pay the money back without losing everything, including her business.
Carol is not alone. I also heard from Jai, who also qualified under the total income provisions, but is now being asked to repay $6,000. Jai is living with disabilities and a low income, and for her $6,000 is an impossible sum to repay. We are hearing from thousands of Canadians, people with home-based aesthetics salons who closed their doors to protect public health and reopened when they were allowed to, but now face greatly reduced business. These business owners had small incomes to help them get by. Those incomes are largely gone because of COVID. They cannot repay these supports they thought the government was giving them to make sure that they and their businesses survived. They are angry, disappointed and, frankly, they are scared.
When will the government admit that it made the mistake here, and not these hard-working Canadians?