The leader for Quebec of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Paul-Hus, believes that all the light must be shed on the payment of PCU to civil servants who were not entitled to it.
• Read also: Officials caught in the PCU bowl
“It is scandalous to learn that Service Canada employees responsible for distributing the Canada Emergency Response Benefit have received taxpayer-funded benefits,” he said in a statement sent to our Bureau of Investigation.
According to him, the government must indicate how many employees received the CERB when they were not eligible.
It must also explain how this kind of abuse could have been committed and the mismanagement of the program.
He also criticizes the lack of transparency on this issue.
opaque government
It took our Bureau of Investigation several months to obtain the information despite repeated requests under the Access to Information Act.
During the first two requests for access last May, the federal agency indicated that there was no document answering our questions on the number of employees and the sanctions in connection with employees who had received the CERB .
Our Bureau of Investigation finally asked to obtain a copy of the emails exchanged regarding the access requests he had made.
Telltale email
Among the dozens of emails was a response sheet filled out by the director general of internal integrity and security, Luc Tremblay.
In his explanatory note, he gives indications on the measures taken to recover the money and the 44 employees who saw their employment terminated.
Ironically, Employment and Social Development Canada continues to maintain that there are no documents to respond to our requests.
On Friday, he sent a third negative response to our requests for statistics on the subject.