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

Summary dismissal

An SST Tribunal Member will review HRSDC’S file as well as your Notice of Appeal form and any other information you have provided. The Tribunal Member must, by law, summarily dismiss the appeal if, in the Member’s view, the appeal has no reasonable chance of success. However, before doing so the Tribunal Member must notify you in writing of the intention to summarily dismiss the appeal. This will give you an opportunity to provide additional information and make a case to proceed with the appeal. A Tribunal Member will review this information and decide if your appeal should continue or should be dismissed. If it is dismissed, the Tribunal Member sends you the decision in writing.

Decisions to summarily dismiss can be appealed to the Appeal Division using the Application to Appeal to the Appeal Division form (PDF format).

Readiness to appeal

You, HRSDC and any additional party to the appeal have a maximum of 365 days to sign and file a Notice of Readiness with the SST. By signing the Notice, a party is indicating that he or she has no additional documents or submissions to provide and is ready to proceed. The SST can proceed with the appeal only once the Notice of Readiness has been signed and filed by all parties or once 365 days have gone by since the SST has accepted your Notice of Appeal form. HRSDC will also say in its notice if the Department intends to participate by sending a representative should a teleconference, videoconference or in-person hearing take place.

None of the parties can file additional documents or submissions once the SST receives a completed Notice of Readiness from all parties.

None of the parties can file additional documents or submissions one year after the date the appeal was filed with the SST, unless an extension request has been made. A Tribunal Member can accept or reject this request.

If the SST does not hear from you within 365 days of the day you filed your appeal, it will assume you are ready to proceed.

Organizing a hearing

The Tribunal Member will determine if a decision will be made on the record or if a hearing will take place when you and HRSDC agree that you are ready to proceed with the appeal or by 365 days from the date we receive your appeal whichever comes first.

A decision on the record means the Tribunal Member will decide based on the documents and submissions that were filed.

The types of hearings, available to read in our policies section, are:

• by written questions from the Tribunal Member. The member will ask you and/or HRSDC questions in writing to which a written response is required;
• a hearing by telephone;
• a hearing by videoconference; or
• an in-person hearing.

Regardless of the type of hearing you can participate in the official language of your choice. For information about the use of other languages during the appeals process please see the policies page of this website.

The SST will write you to tell you the type of hearing the Tribunal Member has decided to use. The SST will call or write to you to schedule the hearing. If your hearing is by written questions and answers, the SST will give you the date for providing the answers to the Tribunal Member. Following the hearing, the SST Member will issue a decision and the SST 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 General Division and ask that it 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. This application can be made only once and must be submitted within one year of the decision being made.

Next step

If you disagree with the decision made by the General Division, you can appeal to the second level of appeal at the SST, the Appeal Division.