“This page isn’t working.”
Sound familiar?
At 8:30 a.m. Friday, applications opened to 3.7 million British Columbians eligible for some or all of the new B.C. COVID-19 benefit, immediately crashing the government website.
The program offers a $1,000 benefit to families with a combined household income of less than $125,000 per year. Payments to families making more than that will be granted on a sliding scale up to $170,000.
Individuals making less than $62,000 a year will be eligible for a one-time $500 payment, with those earning up to $87,000 are also eligible for a payment along a sliding scale.
The government said if eligible British Columbians applied by Dec. 18, it would take five days to receive a direct deposit, delivering the funds by Christmas Eve.
Who wouldn’t try for a Christmas windfall?
Well, it turns out nearly everybody.
“In and out then freezing and booting me out,” my partner texts me from the other room.
“F*#@,” comes the next message, followed by a tearful emoji breakdown. “Waaaah.”
We are not alone.
Literally probably one of the most frustrating days of my entire life but it’s finally done. Trying non stop since 8:30am. BC GOV pls get ur crap together. #BCRecoveryBenefit
— Kayce Marie (@kaycemariehop) December 18, 2020
Anybody else having fun yet??? #BCRecoveryBenefit #crash #freeze #fun pic.twitter.com/lVMeA2FL3W
— Lisa (@pups_and_arrows) December 18, 2020
I finally got the #BCRecoveryBenefit done... now where's my money? pic.twitter.com/A1ZsdQ0aIY
— Joe 👑 (@BunnyVenom01) December 19, 2020
Others were more reasonable.
Why can't people wait a day before crashing the system all day #1? It's government, they will not run out of money. Relax. #BCRecoveryBenefit
— Patriot Fuddle (@FuddlePatriot) December 18, 2020
Speaking at the legislative assembly Thursday, B.C. Finance Minister and Coquitlam-Maillardville MLA Selina Robinson predicted Friday’s “volume could be considerable” and that “staff have done additional testing of the system, as well as have acquired extra server capacity to deal with the volumes.”
Those measures had clearly fallen short in the early hours of the program.
But once applications do get through, Robinson confirmed that eligible British Columbians will be not be taxed federally or provincially and that the benefit won’t be used to reduce eligibility for those on Employment Insurance.
At a cost of $1.7 billion, the program uses British Columbians 2019 tax returns to estimate eligibility, something Robinson said was necessary as income losses incurred during the pandemic wouldn’t be reported until the end of next summer or fall when 2020 tax information became available.
“We made a choice to have a high enough threshold to capture as many people as possible that could use the help, so that we can act now instead of having to wait six or eight or ten months from now,” said Robinson.
The good news if you didn't get through today? You have until June 30, 2021 to apply.
