EI fraud hits a new high for Liberals as feds chalk it up to better detection
OTTAWA — The total amount of employment insurance fraud has hit a five-year high — a sign for federal officials that efforts to root out wrongful payments are working.
Public accounts documents released this month list more than 104,000 incidents of fraudulent EI claims totalling almost $177 million in the 2017-18 fiscal year.
It marks the fourth year that figures have increased in the wake of efforts by Employment and Social Development Canada to fine tune its fraud-sleuthing tools to improve its ability to find and deal with fraud.
Officials expect to eventually collect $132.8 million of the wrongful payments identified in the fiscal year that ended in March, and plan to write off about $74,000.