SAID recipient wonders why he must take early pension

REGINA Lonnie Le Blanc has been on the Saskatchewan Assured Income for Disability (SAID) program since its inception in 2009, but since turning 60, he feels like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In order to keep qualifying for SAID benefits, Le Blanc must apply for an early pension, but in doing so he is facing a reduction in his pension by up to 36 per cent.

“To me, it’s a hostage situation,” Le Blanc said. “Sign or else.”

Unable to work since a knee injury at his job in 1994 and on longterm medication, Le Blanc has relied on SAID benefits to make ends meet. He’s worried that with a reduced pension he won’t be able to do that any more.

“With previous cuts to SAID and other low-income support programs, my living situation is already difficult,” he wrote in a letter to the Leader-post. “It’s putting me in a position of ‘starve now or starve later.’”

The requirement is nothing new for SAID users; it’s been in place since the program began.

“Our income assistance programs, including the Saskatchewan Assured Income for Disability program, requires clients to access all available income to them to help provide for their basic needs,” said Jeff Redekop, executive director of income assistance service delivery for the Ministry of Social Services.

“That includes accessing the Canada Pension Plan.”

Redekop said the program is, and has always been, intended as a last resort and benefits fluctuate depending on a client’s sources of income.

Benefits may be reduced based on the income they have coming in, but would still be available to ensure they are able to meet their basic needs, he said.

“As long as a person does not have funds to meet their basic needs, our programs are available to either top up or substitute for what they might not have,” Redekop said, adding he encourages anyone who is concerned about their coverage and needs help to reach out to the province.

Fred Sandeski is the executive director for Weyburn’s Community Low Income Centre, an advocacy organization for people on social assistance.

He said he understands the reasoning behind the requirement, but doesn’t agree with it.

“I figure it’s wrong. There’s no two ways about it,” Sandeski said.

“The idea behind social assistance is to assist somebody until they get on their feet,” he said. “But with the way the programs are run, you can only make so much and once you start getting ahead they start clawing it back.

“So you’re going to remain poor regardless.”

He said applying for CPP at age 60 instead of 65 isn’t usually recommended because it does reduce benefits to some degree, but said there are other programs that can be taken advantage of, such as the federal Guaranteed Income Supplement, which can be applied for at age 65.

Le Blanc said he is in the process

of writing a letter to the Social Security Tribunal of Canada to try and assert what he feels is his right to wait and apply for his pension when he is 65 years old.

The tribunal is an independent administrative tribunal that makes “quasi-judicial decisions” on appeals related to the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Pension Plan, and the Old Age Security Act.

The SAID program was introduced in 2009 to give people with long-term disabilities their own income program.

At the time, the funding — which offers monthly payments to those with long-standing disabilities — was available only to those living in residential care. In the summer of 2012, it was expanded to allow those living independently to apply.

In the fall of 2016, the provincial government made cuts to SAID and other income assistance programs, including the end of an exemption that was allowed under SAID, which resulted in a rental housing supplement counting as income, reducing additional shelter benefits for about 1,500 clients.

For one Regina woman, that change meant a decrease of $256 per month.

“I am disabled and therefore I’m poor and that puts me at the mercy of the provincial government,” said Le Blanc’s letter. “Forcing me to take my pension early accomplishes little in the short term and in the long term makes my situation worse. How does that make any sense?”

My living situation is already difficult. (The requirement) is putting me in a position of ‘starve now or starve later.’