Question Period Note: PUBLIC ACCOUNTS OF CANADA 2025 FOR EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT CANADA

Can
you explain the total amount of $641.1 million in debts written off, forgiven or remitted
that were reported by the Department in 2024-2025?

The Department has many processes in place to collect outstanding
debts.
 The Department collects outstanding debts by offsetting them against
program benefits.
 The Department also uses the services of the Canada Revenue Agency
(CRA) to collect outstanding debts.
 All write-offs, forgiveness and remissions are made in accordance with
the Financial Administration Act (FAA), program specific legislation
and Treasury Board policies.
 Debt write-offs, forgiveness’s and remissions are a last resort.

The Department’s total amount of debts written off, forgiven, or remitted in 2024-2025 is $641.1
million compared to $594.1 million in 2023-2024. The increase of $47.0 million is directly related
to the significant increase of Old Age Security (OAS) remissions and the Canada Pension Plan
Disability (CPPD) remissions. However, this increase was offset by the absence of direct
student loan write-offs during the period.
The total amount of debts written off, forgiven, or remitted for 2024-2025 comprise the following
items:
 $244.9 million ($247.5 million in 2023-2024) relates to the forgiveness of CSFA
accounts in accordance with the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act ($242.2
million), the Canada Student Loans Act ($1.0 million) and the Apprentice Loan Act
($1.7 million). Loans are forgiven in cases of death or permanent disability of the borrower as well as under the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). The increase in
forgiveness’s over the past few years can be explained by the changes made to the
RAP in November 2022 to increase the income thresholds and overall eligibility to
the program;
 $166.1 million ($35.8 million in 2023-2024) relates to the remissions of Old Age
Security (OAS) overpayments in accordance with the Old Age Security Act. The
increase stems mainly from the clean-up activities undertaken in preparation for the
migration to the upcoming benefit system;
 $93.3 million ($71.0 million in 2023-2024) relates to the write-off of Employment
Insurance (EI) overpayments and penalties in accordance with the Employment
Insurance Act. Most of these write-offs are due to the expiry of the legislated statute
of limitation. The increase in write-offs is attributable to the processing of an
accumulation of write-offs related to the Employment Insurance Emergency
Response Benefit (EI-ERB);
 $87.2 million ($2.1 million in 2023-2024) relates to the remissions in accordance
with section 23(2.1) of the FAA, $84.9 million for remissions of overpayments
related to the CPP Disability (Disability Pension, Post-retirement Disability Benefit,
Disabled Contributor’s Child’s Benefit and Retirement Pension) and $2.3 million for
the remission of Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and Employment
Insurance Emergency Response Benefit (EI-ERB) debts due to their eligibility for
the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB);
 $49.6 million ($25.2 million in 2023-2024) relates to the write-off of various debts in
accordance with section 25(1) of the FAA. The majority of the debts written off are
related to the Wage Earner Protection Program (WEPP) ($19.5 million), Covid19
benefits ($17.5 million) and previous CSFA regimes ($4.6 million of guaranteed loans
issued between 1964 and 1995 and $4.0 million of risk-shared loans issued between
1995 and 2000); and
 $0 ($212.5 million in 2023-2024) relates to the write-off of direct student loans in
accordance with section 25(2) of the Financial Administration Act (FAA). The annual
Treasury Board (TB) submission for the write-off of accounts was approved in 2024-
2025, however the funding was postponed to 2025-2026. $197.2 million was
expected to be written off in 2024-2025.

Dans le Volume III des Comptes publics du Canada 2025, le Ministère a
déclaré un montant total de 641,1 millions de dollars en dettes radiées,
renoncées ou remises, ce qui représente une augmentation de 47 millions
de dollars par rapport à 2023-2024 (594,1 millions de dollars).