Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement Appeal Division: How to appeal

Starting your appeal

Fill out and send us the Application to the Appeal Division – Income Security form to start your appeal.

You have 90 days to send it to us. Give all the information the form asks for.

You need to include information about your General Division decision. You can include 1 of the following:

A copy of your General Division decision
The date of your General Division decision
The file number of your General Division decision. You can find the file number on the first page of your General Division decision. It begins with “GP”.

Asking for permission to appeal

The form asks you to explain why you think the General Division made a mistake or if you have new evidence that you didn’t present to the General Division. At this stage, you need to convince the Appeal Division to allow your appeal to go ahead. This is called getting “leave to appeal”. The Appeal Division can only consider specific criteria. You have to show the Appeal Division that you have a reasonable argument or that you have new evidence.

Sending supporting documents

We encourage you to send us documents you think will support your appeal, if you have any.

You don’t need to send documents that were given to the General Division. The Appeal Division already has those documents.

The Social Security Tribunal (SST) doesn’t investigate or seek out supporting documents (evidence). We don’t contact people to get more information on your behalf. It’s up to you to send us your supporting documents.

If your appeal relates to residence in Canada, supporting documents could include:

driver’s license
proof of medical coverage and medical records
utility bills
work records
tax records
travel documents, such as a passport
letters from witnesses

If your appeal relates to other things like age or marital status, supporting documents could include:

passport
birth certificate
marriage certificate or statutory declaration of common-law union
documents from religious institutions
letters from witnesses
proof of divorce or separation
medical records

Send us your documents by email, mail or fax. If you send them by email, make sure they’re in a format we can open.

We share the documents we receive with all the parties involved in your appeal.

Keep your originals. Send us copies.

Costs

There’s no fee to appeal to the Social Security Tribunal (SST).

But you may have to pay costs related to your appeal if you:

make photocopies of documents you want to send to us
send documents to us by Canada Post or a courier service
hire a representative
translate documents into either English or French
travel to an in-person hearing

In very rare cases, if you must attend a hearing, you may be able to get reimbursed for travel expenses, living expenses or lost income. The SST chairperson decides if there are special reasons that justify a reimbursement under section 63 of the Department of Employment and Social Development Act. Learn about these special situations in our policy on reimbursement of expenses and payment of allowances.