Human Resources committee  I have to look into that. Generally that is not the procedure. If individuals are blocked for whatever reason, for example, we don't have any income on their files, or we have income and it's too low, or they don't meet the age, they are entitled to call us. If they can put forth

Human Resources committee  I really can't comment on that. We weren't involved in that decision, in terms of who would undertake what program. We were approached to do the wage subsidy. That was a large undertaking with respect to delivering something for businesses. I'm speculating here entirely, but

Human Resources committee  It's not a problem.

Human Resources committee  There's nothing I can think of, in the context of the question you're asking.

Human Resources committee  As I said, it would have been a challenge to launch both the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy at the same time. It was a huge undertaking to do the wage subsidy. In fact, the rent subsidy was very much based on the architecture of the wage subsidy, so it was replicating somethin

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today as you continue your review of the employment insurance program. With me is my colleague, Annette Butikofer, who's assistant commissioner and chief information of

Finance committee  It's impossible to quantify how many people would qualify for this relief at this point, because we don't know at this point who wouldn't have qualified without this relief provision. That's because we'd need their 2019 tax return and their 2020 tax return. We'd need to see the i

Finance committee  Yes, certainly. I want to just clarify that in terms of getting incomplete information or not correct information, that certainly was very early in the pandemic. We were rolling out these programs very quickly. The program began on April 6, and it took us around three weeks to cl

Finance committee  It's not quite as clear as that. It's not that we said they didn't qualify; it was that they may not qualify. Remember, at the time the letters were sent out, all we had was the 2019 tax return. They still may have qualified. If you recall how it works, you can meet that $5,000

Finance committee  Sure, I'd be happy to do that. As Janique said, there's a range of programs. The community volunteer income tax program helps low-income Canadians. That program typically helps 800,000 to 900,000 low-income Canadians a year, so that's a very important program. We also do a lot

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, it seems that Mr. Gallivan has been disconnected. Let me provide assurances that these measures would be for absolutely egregious cases, as Mr. Gallivan pointed out, organized crime. We have absolutely no interest in those who have made mistakes or have interpreted

Finance committee  I'm happy to respond from our perspective. I want to clarify that there are certainly upfront checks that are done. For example, we check that the social insurance number is valid, that the person is of legitimate age to be able to receive this and that there's no double-dipping

Finance committee  I certainly cannot answer that question, but of course as the economic situation evolves, I know the government is looking at all these things, and I'm sure they'll make a call if they need to.

Finance committee  Yes, thank you. I have the statistics as of yesterday at 11:59, so that's end of day yesterday. We've received just under 179,000 applications.

Finance committee  I don't have the exact number in front of me. I can tell you that it's quite small. Our primary focus is looking to make sure that there are no fraudulent applications and that the application is in line with what we have in terms of file on the taxpayer. So far, the rejection