Former government worker sentenced to 18 months for stealing $180K in pension cheques

The Edmonton Law Courts building in an undated photo.

A former Service Canada employee will spend 18 months in jail after she pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $180,000 from seniors.

According to court documents, Bonnie Lo worked as a payment officer for Service Canada for nearly a decade.

In her role, she had access to reassess and redirect government benefits that had not been redeemed by their intended recipients.

The documents show that between Oct. 29, 2012 and Dec. 20, 2016, she altered payment information within the Service Canada system to reroute funds to her personal bank account.

The crime was uncovered in August 2018, when a client reported that previously issued Canada Pension Plan (CPP) cheques from 2012 and 2013 had already been cashed.

An investigation found the same credentials had been used 176 times to reroute CPP and Old Age Pension cheques worth $179,689.80.

The Crown asked for a 24-month sentence for Lo, while the defence wanted a conditional sentence.

As part of the sentencing decision, Justice Kathryn H. Oviatt took multiple factors into consideration, including Lo’s guilty plea and childhood trauma, which led to mental health issues and a gambling disorder.

Oviatt wrote that she also considered the seriousness of Lo’s crimes.

“Ms. Lo held a position of trust as an employee of the Government of Canada to distribute public funds to elderly Canadians,” Oviatt wrote in her decision.

“She was entrusted with secure access to government databases, and she repeatedly abused that trust by stealing public funds intended for vulnerable people.”

She also noted that Lo was convicted of fraud over $5,000 and forgery in 2014, for which she received a nine-month conditional sentence.

“The offences here were committed between 2012 and 2016. This means that the prior conviction, and resulting sentence, arose in the middle of the offending for which we are here today. Despite the previous conviction and sentence, Ms. Lo continued to offend,” Oviatt wrote.

Lo will serve 12 months’ probation at the end of her sentence and will be required to take part in rehabilitation, which could potentially include gambling counselling.

A restitution order will also be issued.