Employment Insurance (EI)

[1] I am refusing leave (permission) to appeal. The appeal will not proceed.

Overview

[2] S. M. is the Applicant. I will call him the Claimant because this application concerns his claim for benefits under the Employment Insurance Emergency Response Benefits program (EI-ERB).

[3] The Respondent, the Canada Employment Insurance Commission (Commission), paid the Claimant benefits under the Employment Insurance Emergency Response Benefits program (EI-ERB). Claimants were entitled to a $500.00 weekly benefit if they met the requirements under this program. To get support to claimant’s quickly, the law authorized the Commission to immediately prepay benefits.^{Footnote 1} The Commission advanced claimants $2000.00 of the EI-ERB benefits to which they would be eligible in later weeks. The Commission expected to recover the advance by withholding payment of the EI-ERB benefit in some of those weeks.

[4] The Claimant received seven weeks of EI-ERB benefits starting with the week beginning March 22, 2020. In addition, he received the $2000.00 advance on April 6, 2020. The Claimant returned to work on May 10, 2020, before the Commission had a chance to recover the advance. As a result, the Commission sent the Claimant a Notice of Debt to recover it.

[5] When the Claimant filed his request for reconsideration, he disagreed that he should have to repay the $2000.00 advance. The Commission maintained that he should have to repay the advance, but it also recognized that the Claimant would have been entitled to an additional week of EI-ERB for the week of May 10 to May 16, 2020. As a result, it offset that additional week of entitlement against the amount the total amount of the advance. This reduced the amount of the overpayment from $2000.00 to $1500.00.

[6] The Claimant appealed to the General Division of the Social Security Tribunal, but the General Division dismissed his appeal. He is now seeking leave to appeal to the Appeal Division.

[7] I am refusing permission to appeal because the Claimant has no reasonable chance of success in his appeal. He has not made out an arguable case that the General Division made an important error of fact.

Issue

[8] Is there an arguable case that the General Division made an important error of fact?

I am not giving the Claimant leave to appeal

General principles

[9] For the Claimant’s application for leave to appeal to succeed, his reasons for appealing would have to fit within the “grounds of appeal.” The grounds of appeal identify the kinds of errors that I can consider.

[10] I may consider only the following errors:

1. a) The General Division hearing process was not fair in some way.
2. b) The General Division did not decide an issue that it should have decided. Or, it decided something it did not have the power to decide (error of jurisdiction).
3. c) The General Division based its decision on an important error of fact.
4. d) The General Division made an error of law when making its decision.^{Footnote 2}

[11] To grant this application for leave and permit the appeal process to move forward, I must find that there is a reasonable chance of success on one or more grounds of appeal. Other court decisions have equated a reasonable chance of success to an “arguable case.”^{Footnote 3}

Important error of fact

[12] The Claimant argued that the Commission had wrong information about him. He questioned how they can demand $2000.00 and then reduce the overpayment to $1500.00. He also asserted that he was supposed to have been on a payment plan and protested that he had to pay tax on money that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) recovered.

[13] The Claimant has not pointed to any evidence that the General Division ignored or misunderstood. In fact, he acknowledged that the Commission paid him the $2000.00 advance, and that he stopped claiming the EI-ERB after 7 weeks because he went back to work.

[14] I recognize that the Claimant is distrustful of the Commission’s calculations and feels that the General Division should not have agreed with those calculations. However, the General Division explained why the Commission reduced the overpayment from $2000.00 to $1500.00. I will try to explain it as well.

[15] Everyone who received the EI-ERB, also received the $2000.00 advance. Furthermore, the Commission recovered, or tried to recover, the advance from everyone that received it. The Commission withheld the benefit in certain weeks for those claimants who remained on the EI-ERB benefit long enough. It applied the withheld benefits against the advance to reduce the amount owing. If claimants stopped claiming the EI-ERB before the Commission could recover the entire advance, the Commission declared an overpayment for the unpaid portion.

[16] Sometimes claimants misunderstood their entitlement and they failed to claim all the EI-ERB benefits they could have received. The Commission developed a policy by which it could offset the additional benefits they ought to have received against their overpayment.

[17] That is what happened in this case. The reason the Commission changed the amount that the Claimant owed was not because of some mistake in its calculations. It reduced his overpayment because it decided he should have been entitled to the EI-ERB in the week of May 10 to May 16, 2020, even though the Claimant returned to work on May 10, 2020.

[18] The Commission only paid the Claimant for the first week of his final two-week reporting claim period (from May 3 to May 16, 2020). However, the Claimant met the eligibility criteria to receive benefits in both weeks of the reporting claim period (from May 3 to May 16, 2020). The Claimant could have received the $500.00 EI-ERB benefit for the final week as well. Because of this, the Commission decided to offset that additional unpaid week of benefits to reduce the overpayment.

[19] There is also no arguable case that the General Division made an important error of fact touching his payment plan expectations and his frustration with how CRA deals with collecting debts. The General Division had no authority to make any decision or grant any remedy on those issues. Its jurisdiction is limited to considering those issues set out in the Commission’s reconsideration decision.^{Footnote 4} In this case, it could only consider whether the Commission decision to recover the advance was correct. While it recognized the Claimant’s concerns about his payment plan and CRA’s recovery actions, it properly refused to consider them.

Conclusion

[20] I am refusing permission to appeal. This means that the appeal will not proceed.