Question Period Note: Pension Benefits Service Standards

What is the Department doing to ensure that seniors receive the benefits to which they are entitled in a timely way?

• The Department continues to simplify processes and monitor results against service standards to ensure that seniors receive the benefits to which they are entitled in a timely manner.
• Recent improvements, such as the expansion of the automatic enrollment for OAS and GIS benefits as well as the CPP Proactive Enrollment, have allowed many seniors to automatically access their benefits without applying.
• The Department remains focused on maintaining timely access to benefits and services for all seniors while improvements continue to be made.
• In 2021-2022, Service Canada was near or exceeded its main service standard for the retirement benefits which is to pay benefits within the first month of entitlement, with a target to achieve this standard 90% of the time: for CPP Retirement benefits, this service standard was achieved 95.9% of the time, and for the OAS basic pension, this standard was achieved 89.5% of the time.

Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS)

The Department continues to work hard to meet its OAS service standard objectives while recognizing that some applications can take longer to process for a variety of reasons, such as if the Department does not have all required documentation from clients to make a decision. The department monitors its service standards to identify and adjust strategies accordingly, building on improvements made to-date.

In 2017, the automatic enrolment for the OAS basic pension and the GIS was expanded, allowing seniors who are selected for OAS automatic enrolment to be automatically enrolled for the GIS.

In 2018, the Integrated OAS and GIS Application was implemented to allow seniors who cannot benefit from automatic enrolment to apply for both benefits at the same time on one form, instead of completing two separate applications.

Once individuals are either automatically enrolled or have applied for the GIS, they will never need to reapply. As long as they file a tax return or provide income information to the Department every year, their eligibility will be automatically assessed.

Canada Pension Plan (CPP)

A proactive enrolment is now in place to allow contributors to the CPP, who are either in receipt of another CPP benefit or who have recently filed an income tax return, to receive the retirement pension to which they are entitled. This legislation, passed in 2020, waives the requirement for a CPP retirement pension application if the applicant is at least 70 years of age and sufficient information is available to enroll them.

CPP Disability (CPP-D)

In 2016, following consultations and a comprehensive review, new CPP-D service standards were developed, and existing service standards were revised with purposely ambitious targets designed to provide the best service possible to Canadians.

With approved funding in 2020 and lower intake at the beginning of the pandemic, the CPP-D workload inventories have reduced and the Service Standard results achieved through 2021-2022 saw significant improvements.

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