GTA woman caught in confusing CERB repayment issue

In 2020, Shelby Magee was one of the millions of Canadians who received pandemic assistance through the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). This past spring she got a letter in the mail stating she’d been overpaid and owed the government $2,000. But the letter was from Employment and Social Development Canada – a department she had never heard of.

“At first I thought maybe these are fake letters, maybe not necessarily real,” Magee told CityNews. “So I did look on CRA’s website, which is the trusted tax website I always go to, and sure enough there was an outstanding debt that I owed to CERB. And there was an option online for me to create a repayment plan.”

Which Magee says she did, opting for pre-authorized withdrawals from her bank account with the final payment made at the end of August. But days later, Magree received a warning letter stating she still owed the full amount.

“Where’s my money? Where has my money been sent to?” was Magee’s initial reaction. “I thought it was gone in that moment until an agent confirmed it was in the wrong department.”

Turns out there are TWO government department’s handling CERB repayments – the Canada Revenue Agency and Service Canada. Because Magee originally applied for the benefit through Employment Insurance, which falls under Service Canada, that was the department she was supposed to repay.

Magee says the whole system is unnecessarily confusing and stressful.

“Why do these two departments not communicate? How many other people’s money is sitting in that account right now, not being accounted for? That’s what’s really scaring me.”

CityNews asked the CRA how this could happen and how many others like Magee have been impacted by the confusion. We did not get a response before this story was published.

Magee was able to get the misplaced funds transferred to the right department, though she will have to follow up in a month’s time to ensure it’s taken care of. In the meantime, Magee has this advice for others.

“If you’re currently making repayments, I would be triple checking right now that your money is going to the right department,” she said. “Be proactive and verity all this information because they won’t do that for you and they won’t alert you to any errors.”