Question Period Note: OLD AGE SECURITY (OAS) PROCESSING

How has the Government of Canada managed the processing of Old Age Security applications and pensions call centre volumes?

• Service Canada is committed to supporting seniors and ensuring they receive the benefits to which they are entitled, including the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for low-income seniors and the Allowances for the Survivor and for near seniors.

• Over the last six years, the OAS population grew by 3.6 million seniors, a total of a 63% increase.

• Despite this growing number of OAS clients, Service Canada is currently meeting the speed of service standard, by ensuring that 90% of clients receive their benefits within the first month of entitlement.

Seniors were among the fastest-growing segment of the Canadian population between 2016-2021. The number of persons aged 65 and older rose 18.3% to 7 million.

As of February 2022, there were close to 6.9 million OAS recipients, including 2.2 million GIS recipients, plus about 72,000 Allowances recipients.

Consequently, the OAS program has faced unprecedented growth in workload because of the increased demand for OAS benefits. The number of OAS beneficiaries has grown by 67% over the last 18 years, from 4.2 million in 2004-2005 to almost 7 million in 2021-2022.

Using income information from an individual’s federal Income Tax and Benefit Return or income information received directly from the individual, Service Canada reviews the entitlement for the GIS, Allowance, and Allowance for the Survivor and if the individual is still entitled, benefits are automatically renewed. As long as they file a tax return or provide income information to the Department every year, their eligibility will be automatically assessed.

The GIS, Allowance and Allowance for the Survivor is based an individual’s marital status and their net income or in the case of a couple, the combined net income.

Processing times

The processing of OAS applications is prioritized so that as many people as possible receive their benefits in the first month they become eligible. Therefore, processing times will differ depending on when the person sent in their application, whether the application is received close to the eligibility date or not.

Typically as of 2018, for an initial application to the Old Age Security pension, applications received more than four months before the requested start date are processed approximately 60 days before the requested start date. For applications received less than four months prior to the requested start date, they are processed within 145 days and usually within 90 days.

Fiscal Year
(April to March) Results
(Target : 90%)
2011-2012 91.0%
2012-2013 90.6%
2013-2014 92.4%
2014-2015 88.0%
2015-2016 88.4%
2016-2017 86.8%
2017-2018 87.3%
2018-2019 91.9%
2019-2020 90.5%
2020-2021 90.5%
2021-2022 89.5%
2022-2023 (as of September 2022) 89.7%

Pensions Call Centre

The Pensions Call Centre offers virtually 100% accessibility, meaning all clients can choose to wait to speak to an agent rather than hearing a busy signal.

Pension Call Centre statistics for 2021-22:
• Average Wait Time for the Pensions Call Centre: 24 minutes (Target 80% of calls in 10 minutes)
• Accessibility: 92%
• Call Answered by an Agent: 2.4M
• Calls Resolved in IVR: 3.2M

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