Annual report for the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year: Empowering people to participate fully

ISSN

2818-4955

Message from the Chairperson and Executive Director

The Social Security Tribunal (SST) conducts hearings on traditional Indigenous territories across Canada. Our Secretariat is in Ottawa, on the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. As a small step along the path of reconciliation, we take this opportunity to show our gratitude and our respect for the land where we work.

People come to the SST to challenge government decisions about their Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security benefits. These benefits are an essential part of Canada’s social safety net. People want an appeal process that’s simple, quick and fair.

This year, we worked to reduce appeal backlogs. We welcomed new members (decision‑makers). We reassigned members internally. We found efficiencies. We’re happy to report that we’ve largely eliminated appeal backlogs across the SST. There’s a trend toward more timely decisions. We’re in a good position to deliver on our service standards in the coming year.

Interim Chairperson, Shirley Netten. Executive Director, Anab Ahmed

Changes in the law took effect in December 2022. This year was our first full year applying new Rules of Procedure opens a new window and new appeal processes for Income Security appeals, including fresh (de novo) hearings at the Appeal Division. Credit goes to our members and staff for a smooth transition.

We also now have a regulation opens a new window ensuring that everyone appealing to the SST can choose the type of hearing for their appeal. The exceptions are very limited.

Changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) appeal process are coming next. First-level appeals will be heard by the EI Board of Appeal instead of the SST. Second-level appeals at the SST will be simplified. We’ve been busy preparing for these changes, which will take effect on a date set by order of the Governor in Council.

Alongside backlog reduction and process changes, we continued our focus on delivering justice that puts people at the centre. Empowering people to participate fully in the appeal process is at the heart of what we do. In this report, we have a section dedicated to accessibility and inclusion at the SST. We also highlight recent initiatives to help us be more efficient, transparent and collaborative.

We invite you to learn more about the work we do by reading about this year’s initiatives, reviewing our decision highlights, and diving into our numbers.

Shirley Netten

Chairperson
Social Security Tribunal

Anab Ahmed

Executive Director, SST Secretariat
Administrative Tribunals Support Services of Canada

Year at a glance

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We completed 8,428 appeals

Income Security
- General Division 2,644
- Appeal Division 202
Employment Insurance
- General Division 4,732
- Appeal Division 850

Hearing type

15% in person
55% by teleconference
25% by videoconference
5% in writing

We surveyed appellants to find out how satisfied they were with the appeal process.

97% felt they were able to participate fully in their hearings
95% were satisfied overall

86% of appellants didn’t have professional representation

Self-represented: 73%
Represented by a friend or family member: 13%
Professional representation: 14%

Navigators
- 2,788 people used our navigator service
- 100% of users surveyed agreed that their navigator helped them feel more prepared and confident
Our call centre processed 17,612 calls
We published 1,855 decisions opens a new window
Our website got 48,583 visits overall (with 27,918 unique visitors)

Who we are and what we do

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General Division
- Income Security: Hears appeals of Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security reconsideration decisions
- Employment Insurance: Hears appeals of Employment Insurance reconsideration decisions
Appeal Division: Hears Employment Insurance and Income Security appeals of General Division decisions

The SST decides appeals about these benefits:

Canada Pension Plan (CPP) disability and other CPP benefits
Old Age Security (OAS), including the Guaranteed Income Supplement
Employment Insurance (EI)

The SST has 2 levels of decision-making and is led by a chairperson and 3 vice-chairpersons. At the end of the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year, we had 75 members.

We’re supported by the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC). Our Secretariat, led by an executive director, has about 200 employees. They provide us with registry, legal, outreach, evaluation, member and corporate services.

Accessibility and inclusion at the forefront

We want to provide an inclusive and accessible appeal process and an environment where everyone can participate fully in appeals. What’s more, we want to be proactive in our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion. Here are some highlights of the strides we made in these areas this year.

A stronger accommodation and accessibility policy

We strengthened our accommodation and accessibility policy. To address any gaps in our former policy, we consulted with:

stakeholders from our Income Security Appeal Consultative Committee (ISACC) and Employment Insurance Appeal Consultative Committee (EIACC)
32 additional stakeholder groups, including:
- disability legal organizations and scholars
- intersectional organizations (organizations that help people who are marginalized in more than one area of life)
- disability advocacy organizations
an internal working group made up of employees and members

Based on what we heard, we updated our policy by:

setting out our commitments
reminding people that they have a right to accommodation at the SST
including the SST’s role and responsibilities
adding a non-exhaustive list of ways we may be able to accommodate
creating an accommodation request form people can use to tell us what they need
explaining how we can address barriers that aren’t related to the grounds of discrimination opens a new window set out in the Canadian Human Rights Act opens a new window.

More inclusive forms

We updated our application and appeal forms to include a section where appellants and representatives can identify their pronouns. This acknowledges the importance of respecting diverse gender identities. It supports a more inclusive appeal process.

A robust equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) framework

To advance our commitment to EDI, we developed a robust framework centred around 5 core pillars:

leadership
a safe workplace
representation
awareness
service to the public

The framework draws on principles like shared responsibility and “nothing about us without us”—the idea that you can’t make a policy about a group without involving that group.

We’re looking at ways to support the core pillars and will implement this initiative in the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year. We’ll monitor and report on our EDI progress to be transparent and accountable.

Gender-based analysis plus (GBA+)

This year, we gathered socio-demographic data to better understand the people who use our service. The data will help us identify and reduce barriers for specific population groups. It will give us the level of understanding and perspective we need to make our appeal process as accessible and inclusive as possible.

Our evolving website

Having an accessible website is very important to us. That’s why we added an accessibility menu. It lets you personalize how you view the website. Among other things, you can:

make the text bigger
play with the contrast
change the spacing between lines or letters

The icon is in the bottom-right corner of every page on our site.

What’s more, we understand people absorb information differently. So we’re working on adding videos to give people another way to get the information they need. We plan to make short, easy-to-understand videos that address specific challenges in the appeal process. To come up with topics for our videos, we rely on client survey data and input from ISACC and EIACC stakeholders. Stay tuned for our first video!

Other initiatives

Tailored deadlines for CPP and OAS appeals at the General Division

Our efforts last year with early and active case management taught us that not all appeals need the same amount of time. This year, we started to tailor the Income Security appeal process at the General Division according to the type of appeal. For most CPP disability appeals, appellants now have 8 months to send us their documents. For other CPP and OAS appeals, most appellants now have 3 months.

With tailored deadlines, people won’t wait longer than necessary for their decisions.

Two new ways to start an appeal

This year, we gave people more options for how to start their appeals to the SST.

My Service Canada Account: As of November 2023, people can start their Canada Pension Plan (including disability) and Old Age Security appeals to the General Division using their My Service Canada Account (MSCA). We’ll evaluate the success of this initiative to see whether we should expand it in the future.

Guided pathway: Community Legal Education Ontario launched a new tool for people who want to appeal CPP disability decisions to the General Division. The guided pathway opens a new window walks the appellant through filling out their notice of appeal form electronically. When they’re done, the tool generates a completed form that they can submit to the SST.

Working with community stakeholders

This year, we continued to work closely with our Income Security Appeals Consultative Committee and Employment Insurance Appeals Consultative Committee partners to exchange information and gain valuable insights. This helps us identify barriers and challenges in navigating the appeal process.

To support access to justice, we hosted virtual sessions where we shared legal information about EI and CPP disability appeals. Participants included law students, paralegals, community justice workers and other advocates. We also held general information sessions with organizations interested in learning more about our services.

Evaluation: How to keep improving

Evaluating our work is a priority for us so we can find ways to improve our service and stay accountable.

This year, we evaluated our navigator service opens a new window at the Appeal Division. This involved telephone interviews with a sample of former navigated parties. Their feedback will help us improve our navigator service.

We also had our decisions and letters reviewed externally to see how we can use more inclusive language. The external reviewers looked at a sample of over 50 documents. We got some recommendations to help us continue to make sure the language we use is accessible and inclusive. Here are some examples:

Use the language alternatives provided in the report
Create guiding principles for gender-neutral language in French
Train members and regularly review our progress

We created a management response and action plan to help us put these recommendations into practice.

Focus on transparency

We regularly develop and update policies to make our processes as clear as possible.

This year, we created a policy for reimbursements and allowances. In special situations, the SST Chairperson can reimburse a party’s travel or living expenses (like lodging, transportation or parking costs) and pay allowances (like lost wages). This new policy explains what the law says and how the Chairperson makes decisions about reimbursements and allowances.

We also published a policy for three-member panels. Appeals at the SST are usually heard by 1 member. In some cases, the Chairperson may choose to have 3 members hear a specific appeal. This new policy outlines the types of appeals that may be suitable for a three-member panel and how the panel gives its decision and reasons.

We clarified our process for making a complaint about a member. In some situations, people can make a complaint if they feel that a member has violated the member Code of Conduct. The updated process has examples of what people can and can’t make a complaint about. It also explains that a complaint won’t change the member’s decision. We publish a summary of complaints we deal with under the complaint process.

Decision highlights

Income Security appeals

Most Income Security appeals are about the CPP disability pension. These appeals typically focus on the CPP’s test for being disabled: whether the person is “incapable regularly of pursuing any substantially gainful occupation.” If the person has a job, the member may have to consider whether it is a “real” job.

CPP disability pension – Benevolent employer

The Appellant had been receiving a CPP disability pension. The General Division decided that he was no longer disabled. He worked part-time and earned above the “substantially gainful” threshold, as defined in the law.

The Appeal Division found that the General Division hadn’t considered the Appellant’s work output and performance, or the employer’s expectations of him. These factors were relevant to deciding whether the employer, who was the Appellant’s son, was a benevolent employer. After interpreting the relevant parts of the CPP, the Appeal Division concluded that the Appellant’s earnings were from his son, not from an “occupation.” In other words, the son was so accommodating that the Appellant’s earnings didn’t show that he was employable in the real world. The Appeal Division decided that he was still disabled and entitled to his CPP disability pension: SI v MESD, 2022 SST 1237 opens a new window.

This year, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) found that the Appeal Division decision was reasonable: Canada (Attorney General) v Ibrahim, 2023 FCA 204 opens a new window.

People sometimes dispute the start date for their CPP disability pensions.

CPP disability pension – Retroactive payment of benefits – Incapacity

A person can’t get CPP disability payments more than 11 months before they applied unless they were “incapable of forming or expressing an intention” to apply earlier. This is known as the incapacity test. The SST and the courts have interpreted it strictly. A person can have a severe and prolonged disability but not meet the incapacity test. Generally, if a person can form or express an intention to make decisions in their life, they’re considered capable of applying for CPP benefits. This was the case in DS v MESD, 2023 SST 1090 opens a new window.

OAS appeals are often about the length of time a person resided in Canada.

OAS pension – Determining years of residence

To get an OAS partial pension, people applying from outside Canada need 20 years of residence in Canada. A person “resides” in Canada if they make their home and ordinarily live in any part of Canada. There are many factors to consider in assessing residence. In this case, the General Division had to look at a period of 45 years. It considered the strength of the Appellant’s ties to Canada during 3 sub-periods. In the end, it decided that the Appellant had resided in Canada for less than 18 years, so he couldn’t get an OAS pension: YM v MESD, 2023 SST 1963 opens a new window.

In December 2022, the criteria changed for getting permission to appeal an Income Security decision to the Appeal Division.

Income Security – Permission to appeal – New evidence must be relevant

One of the new criteria for getting permission to appeal an Income Security decision is having evidence that wasn’t before the General Division. The Appeal Division has said that the new evidence must be relevant to the issue it needs to decide. For example, a person who wanted a CPP disability pension didn’t get permission to appeal despite providing more medical evidence about their disability. The issue was whether their appeal to the General Division was late, so the new evidence wasn’t relevant: VJ v MESD, 2023 SST 804 opens a new window.

Employment Insurance appeals

The SST continued to deal with EI appeals related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Misconduct – Violating a vaccination policy

Many decisions looked at whether violating an employer’s vaccination policy was misconduct under the Employment Insurance Act (EI Act). They highlight how “misconduct” has a specific meaning under the EI Act. It includes deliberately going against a work policy when the person knew (or should have known) it could result in their dismissal. It isn’t for the SST to decide whether the policy was unfair or unlawful—these types of concerns are for another forum. Recent decisions include CT v CEIC, 2023 SST 1765 opens a new window; JB v CEIC, 2023 SST 1325 opens a new window; and CEIC v AL, 2023 SST 1032 opens a new window (decided by a three-member panel). SST decisions involving vaccination policies have been upheld by the Federal Courts (for example: Cecchetto v Canada (Attorney General), 2023 FC 102 opens a new window; Sullivan v Canada (Attorney General), 2024 FCA 7 opens a new window).

In a few cases, the SST decided there was no misconduct, since it wasn’t proven that the claimant knew they could be let go or suspended. For example, in one case, the claimant was suspended while waiting for a religious exemption, and in another, the claimant was on medical leave for other reasons: FA v CEIC, 2023 SST 1116 opens a new window; KM v CEIC, 2023 SST 1131 opens a new window.

EI Emergency Response Benefit – Eligibility

The SST interpreted the sections in the EI Act about eligibility for the EI Emergency Response Benefit (the EI version of the CERB). The Appeal Division consistently found that claimants were eligible if they had no income for at least 7 days in a 2-week period or earned less than $1,000 in a 4-week period. It rejected an interpretation that a person was always ineligible if they earned more than $1,000 in a 4-week period: CEIC v JE, 2022 SST 201 opens a new window; RG v CEIC, 2022 SST 1207 opens a new window; HG v CEIC, 2023 SST 355 opens a new window.

This year, the FCA said that the Appeal Division’s interpretation was reasonable: Canada (Attorney General) c Gagnon, 2023 FCA 174 opens a new window.

A common issue in EI appeals is availability for work.

Availability for work – Students

To get EI regular benefits, a claimant has to prove that they’re available for work. Two different approaches emerged for cases involving students. Some SST decisions said a student has to be available for full-time work during regular business hours: AS v CEIC, 2023 SST 927 opens a new window; DP v CEIC, 2022 SST 820 opens a new window. Other cases used a more contextual approach, considering a student’s work history: SS v CEIC, 2022 SST 749 opens a new window; BN v CEIC, 2022 SST 69 opens a new window.

This year, the FCA decided it was unreasonable for the Appeal Division to interpret the case law as saying availability has to be shown during regular hours for every working day and can’t be limited to irregular hours. The FCA confirmed the presumption that full-time students aren’t available for work. It said that a contextual analysis of the claimant’s circumstances is needed to decide whether the presumption should not apply: Page v Canada (Attorney General), 2023 FCA 169 opens a new window.

The SST considered an appeal under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) about the combination of EI benefits.

Charter appeals – Combination of EI regular benefits and maternity/parental benefits

The EI Act says that people who get both special and regular benefits can’t get more than 50 weeks of benefits in a benefit period. Six women who lost their jobs around the time they welcomed a child into their families were denied regular benefits because they had already received 50 weeks of maternity and parental benefits. They challenged this limit as being a violation of the right to equality under the Charter. The General Division accepted their arguments: LC et al v CEIC, 2022 SST 8 opens a new window.

This year, the Appeal Division reversed that decision. It agreed that the EI Act indirectly creates a distinction based on a ground under the Charter, specifically sex. But it found that the distinction doesn’t amount to discrimination under the Charter. It said that the General Division had made a mistake by not considering the purpose of the EI Act or its legislative context: CEIC v LC et al, 2024 SST 24 opens a new window.

The Claimants have asked the FCA to review the Appeal Division decision.

The SST decides these and many other issues under the Canada Pension Plan opens a new window, Old Age Security Act opens a new window and Employment Insurance Act opens a new window. You can browse published decisions in our decision database opens a new window or search by case number, subject, date, appeal level or result. Our database now has over 14,000 decisions.

Our Income Security numbers

General Division

Inventory

We resolved many more appeals than we received this year. By year’s end, our active inventory (files ready for hearing or decision) was manageable for the number of members we had. 14% of our files (216 out of 1,495) were active at that time.

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Appeals received and appeals resolved. In 2019-20, we received 2,058 appeals and resolved 2,592 appeals. In 2020-21, we received 2,196 appeals and resolved 1,998 appeals. In 2021-22, we received 2,417 appeals and resolved 2,095 appeals. In 2022-23, we received 2,005 appeals and resolved 2,270 appeals. In 2023-24, we received 2,086 appeals and resolved 2,644 appeals.

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Number of open cases as of March 31. In 2020, there were 1,798 open appeals. In 2021, there were 1,996. In 2022, there were 2,318. In 2023, there were 2,053. In 2024, there were 1,495.

Processing times

Our processing times improved compared to last year. Our average time from when parties are ready to when we issued a decision decreased to 93 days. Our average time from the hearing to when we issued a decision decreased to 24 days.

Number of days from when parties are ready to when we issue a decision

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Number of days from when parties are ready to when we issued a decision. In 2019-20, our average was 85 days. In 2020-21, it was 74 days. In 2021-22, it was 84 days. In 2022-23, it was 126 days. In 2023-24, it was 93 days.

Number of days from the hearing to when we issue a decision

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Number of days from the hearing to when we issued a decision. In 2019-20, our average was 20 days. In 2020-21, it was 21 days. In 2021-22, it was 25 days. In 2022-23, it was 29 days. In 2023-24, it was 24 days.

Service standards

This year, we aimed to give appellants their decision within 70 days of when parties are ready for the hearing, at least 80% of the time. Our ability to reach this goal has been improving. We went from 21% at the start of the year to 59% at year’s end.

We also aimed to give appellants their decision within 30 days of the hearing, at least 80% of the time. Our best monthly average was 92%, while our lowest was 69%.

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How many appeals got a decision within 70 days of readiness this year. In April 2023 we succeeded 21% of the time. In May 2023 it was 30%. In June 2023 it was 42%. In July 2023 it was 56%. In August 2023 it was 60%. In September 2023 it was 53%. In October 2023 it was 49%. In November 2023 it was 60%. In December 2023 it was 63%. In January 2024 it was 62%. In February 2024 it was 51%. In March 2024 it was 59%.

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How many appeals got a decision within 30 days of the hearing this year. In April 2023, we succeeded 83% of the time. In May 2023 it was 74%. In June 2023 it was 81%. In July 2023 it was 75%. In August 2023 it was 76%. In September 2023 it was 69%. In October 2023 it was 70%. In November 2023 it was 76%. In December 2023 it was 83%. In January 2024 it was 69%. In February 2024 it was 92%. In March 2024 it was 86%.