Every working person is required to contribute to the Canada Pension Plan. There are various benefits under the Plan, some of which you may know about, some of which you may not. You are, of course, eligible for a retirement pension. You may choose to receive a full pension at age 65. Or you may apply for a reduced pension at age 60 under certain conditions.
Another benefit under the Canada Pension Plan is a death benefit to be paid to the estate of the deceased contributor or directly to the person who pays for the funeral. There is also a survivor’s pension which the Plan will pay to the spousal survivor of the deceased contributor. An important benefit, perhaps not as well-known, is the contributor’s entitlement to a disability pension. This is different from the provincial disability pension under the Ontario Disability Support Program Act. Under the provincial system, you do not make contributions and part of qualifying is that you cannot have any more than $5,000 in your bank account at any one time. The Canada Pension Plan is a federal plan where you are entitled to a disability pension if you meet the criteria for disability. The criteria are, unfortunately, quite stringent. To qualify you must have a severe and prolonged mental or physical disability. The legislation states that a disability is prolonged if it is determined that the disability “is likely to be long continued and of indefinite duration or is likely to result in death.” To prove this criterion, you will have to provide the government with some persuasive medical reports. A disability is considered severe if it is determined that you are “incapable regularly of pursuing any substantial gainful occupation.” The severity criterion has been definitively interpreted by the Federal Court of Appeal. The court rejected the idea that a disability applicant must be incapable, at all times, of pursuing any conceivable occupation. The court instead applied a more lenient “real world” test. The applicant must be “incapable of pursuing with consistent frequency any truly remunerative occupation.” In applying this test, the court stated that the government must consider the particular circumstances of the applicant, namely, the applicant’s age, education level, language proficiency, and past work and life experience.