Canada Revenue Agency ‘going after’ refugees: NDP MP Jenny Kwan
OTTAWA — A family of Syrian refugees in British Columbia got a tax bill for $27,000 after the Canada Revenue Agency asked the parents to prove their children live with them in Canada — by getting a letter from their school in July.
The private group that sponsored both families has raised concern about the way the tax agency dealt with these refugees, which led to one family having its benefits halted and a government demand that they repay money they’d already received.
Leona Etmanski of the refugee support committee at St. Philip’s Anglican Church in Victoria, B.C., says the refugees were asked to prove their children were still living and attending school in Canada, but the documentation they had to produce was difficult for them to gather.
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) officials told them to provide a letter from their children’s school verifying the children were enrolled, but one of the families was asked for this information when school officials were off work for the summer. They were also asked for a letter from their landlords, but due to B.C.’s overheated housing market, the families had moved and tracking down their original landlords for paperwork was challenging.