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Labour board backs firing over CERB fraud
CERB
CERBWS Files
Western Standard News Services
Western Standard News Services
Published on:
05 Apr 2025, 12:00 pm
A federal labour board has upheld the dismissal of a government employee who fraudulently claimed thousands in pandemic relief payments, marking the first ruling of its kind.
Blacklock's Reporter says an adjudicator with the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board determined the employee knowingly disregarded eligibility rules.
“She knew the importance of correctly understanding eligibility criteria and sticking to it,” wrote adjudicator Nancy Rosenberg.
“However, in her own case, the grievor seemed to go out of her way to not clearly understand or obtain definitive information on the eligibility criteria and whether she met it. Her end goal seemed to be an attempt to maintain plausible deniability.”
Jacqueline Byrne, of St. John’s, who earned $64,000 annually as an Employment Insurance benefits officer with the Department of Employment, was fired after applying seven times for Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments, receiving a total of $14,000.
“She was still receiving her full department salary which made her ineligible,” Rosenberg wrote.
Byrne, a federal employee for 20 years, was responsible for ensuring accurate claim processing. She testified that she was confused by “conflicting information in the media.”
The Board rejected this argument and upheld her termination.
Rosenberg emphasized that Parliament designed CERB for specific hardship cases when it swiftly enacted the program to assist financially struggling Canadians.
“The temporary CERB program was put in place to ease the financial burden by quickly getting some money into the hands of impacted Canadians to cover their basic living needs, to help keep a roof overhead and food on the table,” she wrote.
At least 49 Department of Employment staff were fired for CERB fraud. A 2023 departmental briefing acknowledged widespread irregularities in the program, which exceeded its initial $24 billion estimate, ultimately costing $81.6 billion. Auditors have yet to fully account for the overspending.
Government figures show 190,254 people quit jobs to claim $2,000 monthly pandemic relief cheques.
Benefits were also paid to 1,522 prisoners, 704 claimants residing outside Canada, and 434 children under age 15, all of whom were ineligible under the Act.
The program also issued payments to 391 deceased individuals, including cases of attempted identity theft.
“As part of the intake control in place for the delivery of benefits, a verification of the individual’s identity through the Social Insurance Register was conducted,” stated the 2023 Briefing Binder.
“Applications were not processed in situations where the applicant’s death was registered.”
I want those responsible for giving the LONG list of ineligible recipients the money fined and made to pay back those funds to the taxpayers and I frankly don't care how the government collects it. Enough of this bullshit, that would end it.
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Did anyone watch the Fifth Estate last night. It was on the referendum and had interviews with Rath and Chris Scott along with others. It was interesting and can tell that the East is awake although don't agree with a lot of what was said it enlightened me as I became a UCP member after Kenney left not to get rid of him although was glad to see the ass end of him, He was also interviewed. Then they said Danielle left her talk show to run for Premier as she was a separatist. She was bullied by callers and they let them through, not screen like Shay and others do. The show before it was on the Quebec election and was also enlightening. It is a striking difference how the separatists are treated and Albertans.
I would liked to have had him interview with Keith Wilson.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/why-people-avoid-grappling-with-deep-suffering-610170
“The first four days were grueling because I began to recognize the patterns of poisoning.
The first entry would indicate a symptom, e.g. pressure in the ears.
I began to notice where this was going: ringing in the ears, migraines, memory loss, depression, all before it moves to the back, skin, extremities, and finally lands in the heart and lungs, ending in total physical breakdown.
Each report is slightly different but the patterns are striking.”
“I had been sent a very large document of small stories written by regular people of their COVID shot injuries.
They were logged at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of their V-safe electronic reporting system that began in December 2020.
More than 10 million people signed up to report any safety issues with the shot. The CDC said they would give a call back to people who are harmed and work through the problem.
Floods of reports arrived.
Most were in the form of a ...
