Nearly $10 Billion in COVID Relief Benefits Paid to Ineligible Applicants: CRA

The Canada Revenue Agency building is seen in Ottawa on April 6, 2020. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Nearly $10 billion worth of COVID pandemic relief payments were sent to ineligible applicants, and to date, less than 20 percent of the amount has been recovered, a report by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) recently confirmed.

In a brief submitted to the Senate national finance committee on May 14, the CRA broke down that total amount into two categories, indicating that it was based on 544,000 cases the agency had audited up until the 2023 year-end of people who received federal COVID-related benefits.