Cheating seniors....

Feds Pocket $1B Owed Public

The federal treasury is pocketing more than a billion dollars a year in unclaimed benefits owed to retirees, newly-disclosed records show. At least 254,000 Canadians entitled to monthly cheques have failed to apply for them, said the Department of Employment.

“This is breathtaking,” said MP Irene Mathyssen, New Democrat seniors critic who requested the data in Parliament. “These are poor lost souls.”

The department in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabling said unclaimed Old Age Security cheques and other benefits are worth $1.02 billion annually, a sum nearly equivalent to cabinet’s entire 2015 budget surplus. Retirees entitled to benefits but who never claimed them are found in every province and territory.

“I see people coming into my office who have not received the benefits they’re entitled to and are in real trouble,” said Mathyssen, MP for London-Fanshawe, Ont. “I had one constituent who faced eviction from his apartment; he had no money for glasses, no money for dentures – and we discovered he was entitled to the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security.” Unpaid claims included:

•$139 million a year in Canada Pension benefits owed 25,000 seniors over age 70;

•$403 million a year in unclaimed Guaranteed Income Supplement cheques owed 154,000 Canadians;

•$480 million a year in uncollected Old Age Security cheques owed 75,000 people.

Authorities said had no idea how many beneficiaries have failed to claim additional CPP disability and survivors benefits, explaining the calculation is “not feasible due to data limitations”. Old Age beneficiaries who have failed to claim their payments number 17,600 in Atlantic Canada and Québec; an estimated 14,900 in British Columbia and the territories; and 9,900 on the Prairies.

“The goal of the government is for every single senior to receive the benefits to which they are entitled,” the department wrote; “The government is constantly looking for ways to ensure every senior who is eligible receives the benefits they are entitled to.”

Under regulations, retirees must individually apply for benefits. MP Mathyssen said seniors should be automatically enrolled based on tax records and other information already electronically compiled in federal databases.

“I’ve asked, and been told there are privacy issues – that the department can’t retrieve information from the Canada Revenue Agency,” Mathyssen said. “The government never has any trouble finding people who owe money, and has shown it has lots of ways to find information, but in this case they choose not to look for it.”

“We see bloated government that will nickel and dime people to death, but there is little action for these deserving citizens who don’t have an advocate,” Mathyssen said; “This money rightly belongs to people who contributed to benefits programs as taxpayers, and helped build the welfare of the country.”

Lapsed payments are redeemed retroactively only to eleven months, the MP noted. Mathyssen said retirees who unwittingly failed to claim benefits should be entitled to five years’ worth of retroactive payments.

By Tom Korski

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