Ottawa's unjust approach to disability insurance

Creation of a new, inadequate Social Security Tribunal was a cut to federal disability insurance by stealth, at the expense of the most vulnerable.

Dreamstime 

People with permanent disabilities who cannot return to work already struggle with very low payments from the government, write Jackie Esmonde and Marie Chen. And a new tribunal system has only made matters worse. 

By: Jackie Esmonde Marie Chen Published on Fri Sep 12 2014

 

Imagine you have a car accident. You file a claim with your insurance company for the damage to your car. Three months later your claim is denied with little explanation. You appeal the decision, but the bureaucratic process takes years because the insurance company does not hire enough adjusters to handle claims. After raiding your savings to cover the repairs and going through three different levels of appeal, your claim is finally granted — but they only give you a fraction of the actual cost of the damage.

No doubt this process would leave you questioning the worth of buying the insurance and the fairness and good faith of the company. You might conclude the entire process was set up to prevent you from getting paid in the first place.

Recent actions by the federal government mean people who apply to Canada’s long-term disability insurance program face precisely this process. But unlike car insurance, CPP-Disability is social insurance. It provides income support to people with significant disabilities who have paid into the system through their and their employer’s contributions. It’s an important source of income for many Canadians with disabilities who are no longer able to work.

The Canada Pension Plan is well-funded, with net assets over $180 billion from contributions and returns on investments. None of CPP’s funding comes from taxes. Yet government has made accessing CPP-Disability harder, not by changing the already-stringent rules of eligibility but by creating a new and more onerous administrative process for appeals. Appeals are important because they catch mistakes. Under the old process, almost half of appeals were ultimately granted.

But the federal government has created a new body to deal with appeals. The Social Security Tribunal now hears all employment insurance, CPP and Old Age Security appeals, taking on the work of four previous tribunals. After opening its doors just over a year ago, the tribunal already has a backlog of almost 10,000 cases.

The government’s legislation actually prevents the tribunal from employing more than the equivalent of 85 full-time decision-makers to hear appeals from all of these programs for the entire country. This is a severe reduction from the number of adjudicators in the previous system. And even this limited number of positions has not been filled.

If cases continue to be heard at the current rate, it will take almost 30 years to clear the backlog. Even if the tribunal picks up the pace, it will take many years. Undoubtedly there are people who will die before their appeal is ever heard.

But lengthy delays and the cumbersome process are not the only problems. The federal government has also changed the rules so that people making claims no longer have the right to a hearing. An adjudicator can deny your case without ever seeing or talking to you. Some lucky enough to get a hearing have been told to travel hundreds of kilometres just to be heard by video conference.

People with permanent disabilities who cannot return to work already struggle with very low CPP-D payments — a maximum $1,200 monthly and $850 on average. The new tribunal system has only created more barriers for people with serious and prolonged disabilities.

And the federal government introduced these changes without warning or consultation. The creation of the tribunal was buried in the 2012 omnibus budget and the rules governing hearings were made public during Christmas holidays.

As legal clinic lawyers, we’ve seen the devastating impact of these changes.


After two accidents, one of our clients suffers from extreme pain and has a brain injury. He applied for CPP-D in 2012 when he could no longer work and is still waiting for his appeal hearing. Meanwhile, he has spent almost all his savings. The tribunal has told him he cannot count on a hearing within a year.

Many others have been waiting even longer. Without an income, some will lose their homes, go bankrupt or be forced to rely on social assistance. They all paid into CPP-D with the expectation they would have something to fall back on if they could no longer work because of disability. Sadly, they were mistaken.

The creation of the Social Security Tribunal was a cut to CPP-D by stealth, at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society. If this was private insurance, would you buy it?

Jackie Esmonde and Marie Chen are lawyers with the Income Security Advocacy Centre, a legal clinic that engages in litigation, community organizing and advocacy to fight poverty and improve income security in Ontario.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/12/ottawas_unjust_approach_to_disability_insurance.html#