According to the Canada Revenue Agency or CRA, nearly 9 million Canadians have uncashed cheques from as far back as 1998, totalling about $1.4B dollars.
The CRA has been working to reduce its backlog of uncashed cheques since February 2020, and says it has so far returned $802 million dollars to taxpayers.
Roughly 25,000 Canadians will soon be notified if they have money owed to them. Another group of 25,000 will be notified in November, and another 25,000 will be notified in May of next year. The CRA says the average amount owed is $158.