Employment Insurance (EI)

Decision

[1] Leave (permission) to appeal is refused. The appeal will not proceed.

Overview

[2] P. R. is the Claimant in this case. She stopped working due to a shortage of work and applied for the Employment Insurance Emergency Response Benefit (EI-ERB). She returned to work after 15 weeks but received the equivalent of 17 weeks of EI-ERB benefits.

[3] The Canada Employment Insurance Commission (Commission) decided that the Claimant was overpaid EI-ERB benefits.^{Footnote 1} They decided that she was only entitled to 15 weeks of EI-ERB. This resulted in an overpayment of $1,000.00 for the additional 2 weeks of EI-ERB that she received.^{Footnote 2}

[4] The General Division agreed and said that the Claimant was only entitled to get 15 weeks of EI-ERB.^{Footnote 3} It said that she was liable to repay the overpayment owing. It also decided that it could not write off the overpayment.

[5] The Claimant is now appealing the General Division decision to the Appeal Division.^{Footnote 4} This appeal has no reasonable chance of success, so I cannot give the Claimant permission to appeal the General Division decision.

Preliminary matters

[6] The Claimant’s application to the Appeal Division identified that the General Division made an “error of fact”.^{Footnote 5} She did not provide any reasons or point to any particular facts that the General Division got wrong.

[7] The Tribunal emailed the Claimant a letter asking for additional information, specifically asking her to provide reasons for appealing.^{Footnote 6} The deadline to reply was June 30, 2023. The Claimant didn’t respond by the deadline set out.

[8] At a later date, the Claimant called the Tribunal and spoke to an agent. She said that she didn’t get the previous letter and asked for an extension to reply.

[9] Following up on her request, the Tribunal emailed a letter granting her an extension to reply by August 23, 2023.^{Footnote 7} It asked her to explain in detail why she was appealing the General Division decision.

[10] The Claimant replied to the Tribunal’s letter and said that the General Division made an “error in jurisdiction”.^{Footnote 8} She did not provide any reasons or explain how the General Division made an error.

Issue

[11] Is there an arguable case that the General Division made an error of fact or error of jurisdiction?

Analysis

[12] An appeal can proceed only if the Appeal Division gives permission to appeal.^{Footnote 9}

[13] I must be satisfied that the appeal has a reasonable chance of success.^{Footnote 10} This means that there must be some arguable ground upon which the appeal might succeed.^{Footnote 11}

[14] The possible grounds of appeal to the Appeal Division are that the General Division:^{Footnote 12}

• proceeded in a way that was unfair;
• acted beyond its powers or refused to exercise those powers;
• made an error of law;
• based its decision on an important error of fact.

[15] An error of fact happens when the General Division has “based its decision on an erroneous finding of fact made in a perverse or capricious manner or without regard for the material before it”.^{Footnote 13}

[16] This means that I can intervene if the General Division based its decision on an important mistake about the facts of the case. This involves considering some of the following questions:^{Footnote 14}

• Does the evidence squarely contradict one of the General Division’s key findings?
• Is there no evidence that could rationally support one of the General Division’s key findings?
• Did the General Division overlook critical evidence that contradicts one of its key findings?

[17] Not all errors of fact will allow me to intervene. An error of fact needs to be important enough that the General Division relied on it to make a finding that impacted the outcome of the decision.

[18] An error of jurisdiction means that the General Division didn’t decide an issue it had to decide or decided an issue it did not have the authority to decide.^{Footnote 15}

I am not giving the Claimant permission to appeal

There is no arguable case that the General Division made an error of fact or an error of jurisdiction

[19] The Claimant identified that the General Division made an error of fact and/or an error of jurisdiction.^{Footnote 16} However, she did not provide any other details or arguments about the alleged errors. Even so, I’ve reviewed the entire file to make sure that the General Division didn’t make any errors.  

[20] First, the General Division had to decide how many weeks of EI-ERB the Claimant was entitled to receive. Then, it had to decide how many weeks of EI-ERB she actually received.

[21] The General Division said that the Claimant has established an EI-ERB claim effective March 15, 2020.^{Footnote 17} The EI-ERB was payable at $500.00 per week.^{Footnote 18}

[22] The General Division decided that the Claimant was only entitled to receive 15 weeks of EI-ERB, totalling $7,500.00. However, it said that she received the equivalent of 17 weeks of EI-ERB, totalling $8,500.00.^{Footnote 19}

[23] The General Division said that the Claimant returned to work after 15 weeks, so she stopped being entitled to EI-ERB benefits.^{Footnote 20} The Claimant agreed that she returned to work after 15 weeks, so she was no longer entitled EI-ERB benefits.^{Footnote 21}

[24] Given that, the General Division said that she was overpaid by $1,000.00, which represents 2 additional weeks of EI-ERB payments she was not entitled to receive.^{Footnote 22}

[25] It is not arguable that the General Division made an error of fact with this case. None of the facts appear to be in dispute. Its findings were consistent with the facts and evidence. In particular, the Claimant agreed that she returned to work after 15 weeks, but that she collected the equivalent of 17 weeks of EI-ERB benefits.^{Footnote 23} This means that she was overpaid EI-ERB benefits by 2 weeks.^{Footnote 24} According to the notice of debt, the Claimant owes $1,000.00.^{Footnote 25}

[26] The General Division acknowledged the Claimant’s hardship argument but said that the Tribunal does not have the power to write off the overpayment debt because only the Commission can make that decision.^{Footnote 26} It said that she was still liable to repay the overpayment debt.^{Footnote 27}

[27] The Federal Court has also confirmed that writing off an overpayment debt is solely within the jurisdiction of the Commission.^{Footnote 28}

[28] Even so, the General Division outlined the options available to the Claimant.^{Footnote 29} It said that she could ask the Commission to forgive all or part of the overpayment debt due to financial hardship or discuss repayment options with the Canada Revenue Agency.

[29] In response to the Claimant’s argument that she paid the overpayment, the General Division acknowledged that she had made a payment towards it.^{Footnote 30} This is also consistent with what the Commission wrote in their arguments.^{Footnote 31}

[30] It is not arguable that the General Division made an error of jurisdiction. It properly identified its jurisdiction when it said that it could not write off the overpayment debt.^{Footnote 32} It only dealt with things that it had the power to.

There are no other reasons for giving the Claimant permission to appeal

[31] I reviewed the file, listened to the audio recording of the General Division hearing, and examined the General Division decision.^{Footnote 33} The General Division did not misinterpret or fail to properly consider any relevant evidence.

Conclusion

[32] Permission to appeal is refused. This means that the appeal will not proceed.