CBC found some even accepted federal subsidies intended to help struggling businesses keep employees on the payroll.
The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, which was introduced in March 2020, was the federal government’s single-largest COVID relief program. It offered employers up to $960 per week for each employee on their payroll so they could continue paying employees rather than letting them go when business slowed.
More than a quarter of the 600-person group of top-billing physicians from each of the six provinces received funding from CEWS.
Because the federal government has only released the names of CEWS recipients, it is unknown how much CEWS money the highest billing doctors received or for how long. However, there is no indication of any wrongdoing or that they failed to meet the requirements of the subsidy, which only required that a business experience a decline in revenue during specific four-week periods in order to receive federal funds.
CBC’s analysis revealed that, on average, doctors who received CEWS payments during the first year of the pandemic billed more to the provincial health insurance than those who did not.
