"We're being compassionate": Minister responds to AG report critical of COVID repayments | FULL

Canadian ministers responded on Tuesday to auditor general Karen Hogan's reports analyzing the federal government's response to COVID-19, including vaccine procurement and pandemic benefits.

Hogan’s first report detailed how well the government did getting ahold of COVID-19 vaccine doses and tracking how many people got them. It found that tens of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses were likely to expire by the end of the year and go to waste due to a failure by the federal government to manage an oversupply of vaccines. Hogan said this also could amount to a cost of $1 billion in waste.

Her second report examined the distribution of benefit payments to people who lost income because of public health restrictions. The audit found that while COVID-19 benefits rolled out by the federal government to those who lost work due to the pandemic helped the economy rebound, not enough has been done to recover overpayments.

In the report, she said an estimated $4.6 billion had been paid to people not eligible, with another $27.4 billion that should be investigated. She added that the Canada Revenue Agency has only collected $2.3 billion in voluntary repayments.

"We're very interested in the fairness aspect the auditor general identified. But the work isn't done -- we paused repayment during Omicron, we paused repayment when the Canada Workers Benefit came out -- we're trying to work with Canadians in a very difficult time and wouldn't mistake a lack of aggressive pursuit for not doing it -- it's just that we're being compassionate about it," employment minister Carla Qualtrough said in reaction to the AG's report.

For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/9328201/canada-covid-vaccines-benefits-ag-reports/

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