Senior warns of old age security delay after 11-month wait

A MANITOBA senior is warning others about old age security pension wait times after it took almost a year for the federal government to process her application and begin payments.

Retiree Wendy Sol, 68, said she wasn’t aware of delays, nor did the government’s website display current or anticipated wait times, before she submitted her application by mail in March 2025.

“When I was filling it out, it asked when do you want it effective, and naively I thought, ‘Let’s make it May (2025),’ thinking it would be processed by then,” she said. “I was shocked when nothing happened (for 11 months).”

Sol said she would have submitted her application earlier — to try to time the approval date with her desired start date for payments — if the government published current processing times or warnings when delays are occurring or anticipated.

Sol, who lives in Narol, just north of Winnipeg, said she phoned Service Canada seven times in a five-month span to get updates on her application status or an explanation for the delay. Some calls led to long waits on hold.

Several times, Service Canada call centre employees told Sol that her application would be escalated in a bid to speed up its approval, but she continued to wait, she said.

Sol, who was frustrated by the experience, said call centre staff did not provide an explanation for the delay. At times, she wondered if federal job cuts factored into it.

“It was a very stressful time, and it still is because this is still weighing over my head,” she said, noting potential personal income tax implications in 2027.

Liana Brault, a spokeswoman for Employment and Social Development Canada, said increased demand and “service delivery pressures” caused an unintended delay in processing Sol’s file.

She said changing demographics in Canada, such as an aging population and more clients living abroad, contributed to an increase in demand. Delays can also occur if applications are missing information or documents.

Brault said the service standard is to pay eligible seniors within their first month of entitlement 90 per cent of the time. The government appeared on pace to miss that target in the last fiscal year, ending March 31.

From April 1, 2025 to Feb. 28, 2026, 75.2 per cent of eligible OAS recipients received their benefits within their first month of entitlement, down from 87.5 per cent the previous full fiscal year, Brault said.

Ottawa has taken steps to try to clear a backlog of applications, prioritizing the oldest files first. Brault said processing times are improving and the “inventory” of new applications from October 2025 to March 2026 decreased by 32 per cent.

More than seven million people receive OAS benefits each month.

Most eligible recipients are automatically enrolled for the OAS pension at age 65, avoiding a manual application. Sol deferred the pension until she turned 68, necessitating her application.

The processing delay meant she didn’t receive monthly OAS payments, as hoped, in 2025. Payment amounts depend on factors such as age, income and whether recipients are still working or lived outside Canada for some time.

The current maximum payment is $743.05 per month for those aged 65 to 74 with net world incomes of less than $148,451, according to the government’s website.

Intended as a basic income, OAS payments are taxable and funded by general tax revenues. Benefits are recalculated annually based on net income in the previous year.

Sol received a lump sum for nine months of missed payments from 2025, after her application was approved and she began receiving the pension in February.

She is required to declare the 2025 sum when she files her 2026 tax return next year, leaving her worried that an increase in reported net income could exceed a threshold and result in a clawback, or OAS recovery tax, of her 2027 benefit.

The threshold is $95,323 for the 2026 income year.

Sol was instructed to complete and submit a T1213OAS form to the Canada Revenue Agency to try to avoid a clawback. The form requests a recalculation of the OAS recovery tax.

“This must happen all the time where people overlap over two tax years,” Sol said.

Sol sent a letter to the office of federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu, who oversees OAS, to share her experience and concerns. She said an employee in the minister’s office called less than 24 hours later to discuss the situation and potential solutions.

“I felt like I was being heard,” Sol said.

She told the Free Press she would welcome a dashboard on the government’s website that displays current or anticipated processing times for OAS applicants.

“That would be the minimum the government could do,” Sol said.

She said there should be reassurance that OAS recipients will not be penalized at tax time if they receive retroactive payments in a new tax year due to federal delays.

Some applicants who will rely on OAS could face difficulty budgeting for expenses if their payments are delayed, Sol noted. She said she was fortunate because her husband works and receives a pension.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca