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

Decision

[1] Permission to appeal is refused. This appeal will not be going forward.

Overview

[2] The Claimant lives the United States and turned 65 years old in June 2017. In August 2019, she applied for an Old Age Security (OAS) pension, claiming that she had been a resident of Canada from 1977 to 1999. She noted that, between 1982 and 1999, her residence in Canada was “extremely complicated” because her work as an entertainer required her to be abroad.^{Footnote 1}

[3] The Minister refused the Claimant’s application because she had not submitted any documentation, as requested, to prove her dates of residence. The Minister recognized that the Claimant might have considered Canada to be her “home base” from which she travelled to engagements. However, the Minister found that she had failed to establish Canadian residence for any length of time.^{Footnote 2}

[4] The Claimant appealed the Minister’s reconsideration decision to the Social Security Tribunal. The General Division held a hearing by teleconference and, in a decision dated September 18, 2021, dismissed appeal. It found that the Claimant had not proved that she had been a resident of Canada for at least 20 years—the minimum period required to receive an OAS pension abroad.

The Claimant’s reasons for appealing

[5] The Claimant is now asking for permission to appeal the General Division’s decision. She alleges that the General Division made the following errors:

• The presiding member repeatedly interrupted her during the hearing and did not make any attempt to understand her case;
• The member did not allow her to submit, or comment about, work contracts that shed light on her living arrangements during her time in Canada; and
• The member found that she stopped working because of personal reasons, even though she testified that medical issues ended her career.

[6] I have reviewed the General Division’s decision, as well as the law and the evidence it used to reach that decision. I have concluded that the Claimant’s appeal does not have a reasonable chance of success.

Issue

[7] There are four grounds of appeal to the Appeal Division. An applicant must show that the General Division

• proceeded in a way that was unfair;
• acted beyond its powers or refused to use them;
• interpreted the law incorrectly; or
• based its decision on an important error of fact.^{Footnote 3}

An appeal can proceed only if the Appeal Division first grants leave, or permission, to appeal.^{Footnote 4} At this stage, the Appeal Division must be satisfied that the appeal has a reasonable chance of success.^{Footnote 5} This is a fairly easy test to meet, and it means that a an applicant must present at least one arguable case.^{Footnote 6}

[8] I have to decide whether the Claimant has an arguable case.

Analysis

[9] The Claimant comes to the Appeal Division making many of the same points that she made at the General Division. She insists that she was a Canadian resident for more than 20 years. She maintains that Canada was her base for a career that frequently took her other countries. She says that she was married to a Canadian naval officer for three years and lived in his quarters in Nova Scotia for some of her time in Canada.

[10] Unfortunately, given the the narrow grounds of appeal permitted under the law, the Claimant cannot succeed at the Appeal Division by simply repeating evidence that she already had a chance to present at the General Division. In this case, the General Division weighed her evidence and found that, although the Claimant frequently travelled to and from Canada in the 1970s and 1980s, she alighted in this country for only brief periods between international engagements. My review of the record indicates that the General Division fully addressed the Claimant’s evidence in its decision but found it less than compelling. That was its right as finder of fact.

[11] The Claimant has also made specific allegations of error, but none of them, in my view, raise an arguable case.

There is no arguable case that the General Division prevented the Claimant from making her case

[12] The Claimant alleges that the presiding General Division member repeatedly interrupted her during the hearing. She suggests that the member did not listen to her testimony.

[13] I don’t see an arguable case on this point.

[14] The member did not rule in favour of the Claimant, but that does not mean he ignored her evidence. I listened to the recording of the hearing, and I heard nothing to suggest that the member approached the Claimant’s evidence with a closed mind. Throughout the proceedings, the member’s tone was firm, but I would not call it aggressive or accusatory. It is true that he asked the Claimant many questions, some of them pointed, but they were all relevant to the key issue of whether she was settled in Canada between 1977 and 1999. At times, the member did interrupt the Claimant, but he did so only to explain to her a point of law or to steer her away from an irrelevant topic.

[15] The Claimant was clearly unhappy to be asked for details about her activities and whereabouts more than 20 years ago, but the onus was on her to show that she was a resident of Canada at the relevant time. The Claimant was unable to recall many key details, such as how long she typically stayed in Canada when she returned from overseas engagements. It was within the member’s authority to draw negative inferences from that lack of recall.

[16] Based on what I heard, the member provided the Claimant with ample opportunity to present her case and betrayed no hint that he had his mind made up. His questions and outward demeanour suggested someone on a good faith quest to determine the true extent of the Claimant’s ties to Canada. I heard nothing to suggest he was bored, disengaged, or biased.

There is no arguable case that the Claimant was not permitted to submit documents

[17] The Claimant alleges that the General Division barred her, not only from submitting work contracts, but also from talking about them during the hearing. She says that these contracts would have supported her claim of Canadian residence.

[18] I don’t see an arguable case here either.

[19] The record shows that the Claimant submitted a 79-page package of documents one week before the hearing.^{Footnote 7} That package included, among other items:

• A letter dated October 2, 2020 from E. C., office manager for X, stating that his agency had represented the Claimant since 2010;^{Footnote 8}
• An unsigned artist’s management agreement dated 1977 between the Claimant and S. S.;^{Footnote 9} and
• A Toronto Musician’s Union engagement contract dated May 5, 1986 between the Claimant and the Sutton Place Hotel.^{Footnote 10}

[20] Contrary to the Claimant’s allegation, the General Division did not refuse the package. Indeed, some of the above items were discussed at the hearing.^{Footnote 11} The General Division member went so far as to allow the Claimant to read the E. C. letter aloud, although he questioned the relevance of a letter written by someone who had no direct knowledge of the Claimant’s activities decades earlier.^{Footnote 12}

[21] In the end, the General Division concluded that evidence of Canadian engagements in the 1970s and 1980s was not enough to show that the Claimant was a resident of this country. I see no reason to second-guess this conclusion.

There is no arguable case that the General Division misunderstood the Claimant’s reason for stopping work

[22] The Claimant suggests that the General Division erred in attributing her retirement to “personal reasons,” rather than medical issues. I have to disagree. First, the General Division did not address this question in its decision, so I’m not sure how the Claimant can be certain that it arrived at the wrong answer. Second, even if the question came up at the hearing, I fail to see how anything turned on it. Whether the Claimant stopped working for personal or medical reasons would have had no bearing on whether she established deep-rooted ties to Canada while her career was still active.

Conclusion

[23] The Claimant has not identified any grounds of appeal that have a reasonable chance of success.

[24] Permission to appeal is refused.