Appealing a Canada Pension Plan decision or Old Age Security decision to the Appeal Division

Permission to appeal

Once an appeal is submitted to the Appeal Division the Tribunal Member assigned to the appeal will decide whether or not to give permission for the appeal to move forward. This is called leave to appeal.

The grounds for appeal to the Appeal Division are limited to:

• the General Division failed to observe a principle of natural justice or otherwise acted beyond or refused to exercise its jurisdiction;
• the General Division erred in law in making its decision, whether or not the error appears on the face of the record; or
• the General Division based its decision on an erroneous finding of fact that it made in a perverse or capricious manner or without regard for the material before it.

If, when reviewing the General Division’s decision and the Application Requesting Leave to Appeal to the Appeal Division form (PDF format), the Tribunal Member believes that one of these grounds may exist, the Member will give permission for the appeal to go forward.

The SST will inform you and other parties to the appeal, in writing, whether or not permission to appeal has been given. The reasons for the decision will be included. This decision can be reviewed by the Federal Court (see the Reference documents and links section).

Permission to appeal is not required when appealing a CPP/OAS General Division decision to summarily dismiss an appeal.

Once permission to appeal is given

If permission to appeal is given, the parties have 45 days to provide submissions regarding the appeal. If no submissions are received within the 45-day period, a Tribunal Member will decide whether to proceed based on the documents and submissions on file or that a hearing should take place. Information about the types of hearings is found in the Policy documents section of this website. Following the hearing, the Tribunal Member will issue a decision, and the Tribunal will send you a copy of that decision.

Re-opening a decision

You can use the Application to Rescind or Amend form (PDF format) to apply to the Appeal Division and ask it to review its decision only if new facts come to light that were in existence but were not known before the hearing or before the decision was made. An application can be made only once and must be submitted within one year of the decision being made.

Final decisions of the Appeal Division are subject to review under the Federal Courts Act.