Federal ministers defended their management of pandemic programs on Dec. 6 after the auditor general released reports indicating billions of dollars in subsidies were provided to ineligible recipients and that millions of unused doses of vaccines could go to waste.
“I remain incredibly proud of the way our government responded to the economic and public health challenges of the pandemic,” said Minister of Employment Carla Qualtrough in a press conference with other ministers.
“These unprecedented income supports directly helped millions of people, including the most vulnerable in our society, at a time of global economic and public health uncertainty. These benefits kept the economy afloat at a time of unprecedented risk.”
Provinces and territories locked down for extended periods in fear of COVID-19, closing schools and businesses, resulting in the federal government injecting billions to sustain out-of-work individuals and businesses that were out-of-clients.
Auditor General Karen Hogan tabled two reports on Dec. 6 and while she agrees with the government that the benefits provided relief to Canadians and helped the economy rebound, she found there was a lack of “rigour” in the post-payment verification work.
Hogan found that $4.6 billion were provided to ineligible recipients and that at least $27.4 billion in payments to individuals and businesses need further investigation.
Minister of National Revenue Diane Lebouthillier pushed back on the claim of lack of rigour and said her government’s programs “saved lives.”
“The Revenue Agency has a lot of rigour in accomplishing its work,” she said. “During COVID we were there to help people and we really saved lives.”
Lebouthillier said she had recently met with entrepreneurs who told her they wouldn’t be there to speak with her had the government not provided financial support.
“We saved jobs, we saved people, we saved families,” she said.
Lebouthilier said her government has a “good plan” to recover the misallocated funds with the verification underway and letters having been sent.
Vaccines
The auditor general also issued a report on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines.Hogan found that the procurement was effective but that efforts to minimize wastage were unsuccessful. This was caused in part by a lack of data-sharing agreements between the Public Health Agency of Canada and provinces and territories.
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said that Canada’s strategy provided “access to vaccines that are safe and effective.”
“This strategy, while producing a surplus, proved very successful. Canada was among the first three countries in the world to administer doses in December 2020.”
Duclos said that approximately 10.8 million doses of vaccines were either destroyed or have expired.
The health minister also recognized and expressed frustration about the data-sharing issue noted by Hogan.
“Our system of health care data is not a world class system, it’s a mediocre class system,” he said.
Duclos said it’s not normal that health care providers are not able to know automatically through information systems whether a child is vaccinated when he seeks care.
Conservative Party MPs have seized upon the auditor general reports to blame the Liberal government for “wasteful spending.”
The Tories did not propose a solution on how to recover the billions of dollars, but instead said the government should say how it will address the findings from the auditor general.
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