Late Friday, a spokesperson confirmed the organization was investigating 600 of its workers suspected of 'inappropriately' receiving the $2,000-per-month CERB
Note that the rules were very unclear at first and I'm sure most weren't full time or indeterminate workers... Heck, where I worked back then we were first told to apply for the new program instead of EI even if we were eligible for EI... It took a while before it became clear who could apply!
While I agree at the start it was confusing, it really should have been clearly understood that if you are working full time in the government (as a casual, term, or indeterminate) then these funds were not for them.
The whole purpose was in the name so there is absolutely zero pity for any gov worker who took CERB.
As I said, some people were told that EI was pretty much on standby and someone else mentioned that even when talking to the people taking care of registration by phone, even they were unsure what was what...
Heck, they laid off casuals and terms working for passports because the workload lowered, the same thing must have happened in other ministries including some CRA departments, what then? EI because it's a lay off and you accumulated enough time or CERB because the reason you got laid off was COVID?
I'm not saying all of them are innocents, I'm just saying we must not do historic revision and pretend that how things worked was clear from the beginning back in 2020.