Lawyers are jointly recommending a fine of more than $68,000 for a Cole Harbour woman who pleaded guilty to 18 counts of employment insurance fraud.
Melissa MacKinnon, 39, entered the guilty pleas recently in Dartmouth provincial court.
After hearing the facts of the case and sentencing submissions from lawyers, Judge Alanna Murphy reserved her decision until later this month.
MacKinnon was office manager for a Bedford fuel company when she committed the fraud in 2016 and 2017.
She used Service Canada’s web portal for businesses to issue herself a fake record of employment, or ROE, in May 2016 and again in September 2017 indicating she had been laid off, and then made false representations to claim EI benefits on 18 occasions.
The fraud enabled MacKinnon to collect EI benefits for 36 weeks in all, from June 2016 to November 2016 and from September 2017 to November 2017.
Crown attorney Lee-Ann Conrod told the court MacKinnon fraudulently received a total of $25,413.
“Each count is a different period of two weeks for which Ms. MacKinnon made a false statement,” Conrod explained. “Every two weeks, she declared zero earnings when in fact she did have employment income.”
MacKinnon left her job in November 2017. The fraud came to light in April 2018, when her former employer issued an amended ROE for MacKinnon showing different dates worked and income than had been previously reported.
“Ms. MacKinnon was given access to the ROE … portal as a trusted agent and authorized person to issue records of employment securely and correctly for her employer,” Conrod said.
“She took advantage of that position to obtain employment insurance benefits for herself to which she was not entitled.”
MacKinnon has multiple convictions for fraud between 2001 and 2013 and at least one for theft. In 2013, she was sentenced to 246 days in custody, followed by two years’ probation.
She has been ordered to pay more than $33,000 in restitution over the years but has not made a single payment.
The prosecutor said the pattern and frequency of the EI offences were aggravating factors.
“She took advantage of our Canadian safety net,” Conrod said of MacKinnon. “Her offence is calculated, opportunistic, deliberate and of a significant amount over a significant period of time.”
Conrod joined with defence lawyer Colin Coady in requesting a fine of $1,000 per charge plus $50,826, double the amount of the benefits received, for a total penalty of $68,286.
The maximum penalty for fraud under the Employment Insurance Act is $5,000 per charge and double the amount of the benefits received, or a fine and up to six months in jail.
“We do believe what we’ve presented is a fair position for the court to consider,” Conrod said.
Coady said his client accepts full responsibility for her actions and is extremely remorseful.
Although MacKinnon told an investigator she has a shopping addiction, Coady said the money did not go towards a “spending spree.”
As a single mother with three children between the ages of nine and 21, “her bills are significant,” Coady said. “She simply does not make enough money from her employment to cover the costs of her … necessities.
“Ms. MacKinnon is at a crossroads right now. She has to understand that any behaviour such as this in the future will have very severe consequences from the court.”
In reserving her decision, Murphy said she wants to think about whether she’s prepared to go along with the joint recommendation. “If I’m not, then I will allow counsel to make some more submissions,” she said.
“The fact that no restitution has been paid on her other fraud charges ... those are the sort of things that I am wrestling with.”
