Nearly half of a $1.4-billion home-heating relief plan for low-income Canadians went to dead people, non-residents and others who did not need the money, the Auditor-General said yesterday.
The program's bad design combined with government mismanagement left 90,000 poor Canadians without any financial aid for fuel bills, Sheila Fraser said.
Only about $250-million to $350-million of the $1.4-billion was paid to low- and modest-income households that faced soaring heating costs, Ms. Fraser said. She noted that the government sent cheques to at least 4,000 non-residents, 7,500 dead people and several hundred prisoners.
"While it is difficult to calculate how many prisoners received the relief for heating expenses, based on available data the department estimates that about 1,600 prisoners could have received cheques," Ms. Fraser writes in her annual report, released yesterday.
The program was created in last fall's mini-budget to provide relief for households coping with high energy prices.
Cheques of $125 for individuals and $250 for eligible families were mailed out based on whether recipients received a credit for GST payments. About 8.6 million Canadians receive the GST tax credit. Source.
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