Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale
Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale
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This section describes your rights and your obligations in matters of recovery.
The claim notice specifies that the claim can be contested. You have 90 days, from the date you receive the claim, to submit an application for review. The required form is available from your Services Québec office 
.
If you disagree with the decision made following the review, you may file an appeal with the Tribunal
administratif du Québec (TAQ) within 60 days of receiving the notice of decision. The TAQ decision is final.
However, immediately after the time period allowed to submit an application for review or to appeal the review with the Tribunal administratif du Québec expires, you are obligated to repay the amounts claimed, in accordance with the terms of repayment.
You can reimburse the amount claimed as soon as you receive the claim notice.
When the deadline to contest a claim or claims has expired, the ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale issues a claim certificate. This document allows the Ministère to use the means stipulated by regulation to recover the amounts claimed.
The certificate also allows the Ministère to collect interest and fees on the amounts owing.
If you received financial assistance from the Ministère while waiting to receive assistance (e.g. CNESST or SAAQ benefits), you must reimburse the full amount of conditional assistance claimed (realization of a right) by the Ministère as soon as you receive the other assistance.
Claims concerning conditional financial assistance, paid to individuals who are entitled to amounts from another organization but have not yet received them, are payable immediately and in full. Other types of claims must be repaid as follows:
To find out the amounts withheld, see the table below.
Last-resort financial assistance (monthly) |
Employment-assistance allowance (weekly) |
|
|---|---|---|
No misrepresentation |
$56 |
$13 |
One instance of misrepresentation |
$112 |
$26 |
More than one instance of misrepresentation |
$224 |
$52 |
Special cases* |
$22 |
N/A |
* Special cases:
Note: People who are only entitled to a claim slip (drug card) under last-resort financial assistance programs are not considered to be receiving financial assistance.
If you are unable to repay the total amount, you must pay, every month and according to certain conditions, an amount that will allow you to repay your debt within a maximum of 36 months following the issuance of the claim certificate. Otherwise, a repayment agreement can be established according to your actual capacity to pay. However, the monthly amount cannot be lower than the withholding on the assistance paid by one of the last-resort financial assistance programs. The repayment can then be made on a monthly, bimonthly, biweekly or weekly basis. Contact a recovery officer to determine the terms of repayment.
Under certain conditions, the Ministère can be required to protect their claim by taking out a legal hypotec (legal mortgage). The establishment of a legal mortgage takes place separately from the negotiating of a repayment agreement.
Every three months, the Ministère will send you an account balance to allow you to know the change in the amount to be repaid.
Please keep in mind that concluding and honouring an agreement is always preferable to legal proceedings. Moreover, when there is no misrepresentation, an agreement that is honoured avoids interest charges.
The Ministère may resort to other means to recover amounts owed to it
Whether or not you are receiving financial assistance from the Ministère, the following amounts that could be owed to you by Revenu Québec may be withheld to repay the sums you owe to the Ministère:
, depending on your annual household income.If you are receiving last-resort financial assistance, the amount withheld from a solidarity tax credit payment cannot exceed half the amount of the payment.
The Ministère can resort to the following legal recourses:
To exercise a legal recourse, a certificate is filed with the court registry and costs are charged to the debtor’s account. Also, a file is opened at the courthouse and this information then becomes public.
The Ministère establishes an order for allocating payments that takes into account the rights of the debtor as provided under the Québec Civil Code.
Allocation of repayments is done in a specified order and to the advantage of the debtor.
Unless the debtor indicates a different method in writing, repayments are allocated as follows:
When there are several claims of the same nature (for misrepresentation or claims other than misrepresentation), older debts are given priority. Receipts are allocated to individual claims before being allocated to claims owed solidarily.
Please note that payments may not be allocated to the capital before charges and interest have been paid. Also, the choice as to the order of allocation does not apply to legal and administrative charges.
The sharing of payments allows the Department to divide a payment between two distinct files.
The shared amount is considered as having been paid by the person benefiting from the sharing, as if that person had personally paid the amount.
The Ministère, unless otherwise specified, divides the amount withheld from the last-resort financial assistance equally between the debtor members of a same recipient family, so that each month, the amount of the debt of each debtor is reduced.
A debtor may allocate part of their payments to repay the debt of their spouse (solidarily liable or not). When the members of a same family decide on such a choice, written confirmation from each person concerned is required.
Before registering or changing the sharing method, the officer must obtain the written authorization of the debtor by having them complete the Request for application of payment form, unless the sharing is purely administrative.
