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The federal government paid $4.6-billion in COVID-19 benefits to ineligible recipients, and another $27.4-billion of payouts should be investigated to see if they met the program’s eligibility. That’s according to an Auditor-General report released on Tuesday. It says that while Ottawa did a good job quickly delivering money to Canadians, they’re doing a poor job identifying who needs to pay the money back.

The Globe’s deputy Ottawa bureau chief Bill Curry explains what we know about where the money went, and why billions of dollars are at risk of going uncollected.

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