Hundreds of Ontario families may have never received the government education support payments meant to help their children during the COVID-19 pandemic after the money was sent to the wrong recipients, an Ontario ombudsman investigation has revealed.
The Ministry of Education distributed more than $2 billion through a series of relief programs intended to help families whose children’s schooling was disrupted by labour strikes and then repeated school closures — but the ombudsman found the application process had gaps that allowed hundreds of payments to go to people who were not responsible for the children’s care, leaving eligible caregivers without financial support and with little recourse to recover it.
