Criteria For Eligibility For Disability Benefits In Canada

By Author: Cameron Callum
Total Articles: 4
Comment this article

CPP or the Canada Pension Plan is a social welfare plan of the Canadian Government to support and actively contribute to the earnings and thereby the welfare of the citizens and some categories of residents of the country even if they are not citizens. It is chiefly meant for tax payers who have actively contributed to the corpus of the Canada Pension Plan.

The first basic criterion to qualify to get disability benefits in Canada is that you must be a Canadian citizen or tax payer. The CPP disability benefits can only be availed by individuals who have contributed to the Pension Plan corpus for a specified period. The specified period is 6 years but those who have not contributed for the last 6 years should have done so for at least 4 out of the last 6 years.

The second criterion is that you must have a disability because of which you should not be able to be continually and gainfully employed for a prolonged period of time.

Canada Disability benefits under the CPP are fully indexed and taxable benefits. They are paid monthly after 3 months following the month when the contributor was disabled. Each individual ...
... who is eligible for these benefits receives a monthly check consisting of a fixed flat-rate component and a variable component which is 75% of the pension that the individual would have received at age 65, the official age of retirement in Canada. There is a maximum limit to this variable component as well.
The waiting period of 4 months after the disability has occurred has been specially kept so that it can be determined that the disability is expected to last for a long term. For the 3 months Canada disability benefits are withheld, the disabled individual can use Employment Insurance benefits that he or she is eligible to get.
The severity of disability is very difficult to judge fairly and realistically. The basic underlying intent of this social plan should be the guiding factor to determine the severity of disability so that disability benefits in Canada are availed by individuals who not only deserve them but also need them at that juncture in life.
If taken by the exact dictionary meaning, the word severity can be wrongly interpreted. Real life circumstances relatedto inability to work should be then taken into account. These circumstances could include age, education level,and speech and language proficiency, past work and life experience.

Cameron Callum is the author of this article and writes articles for his own website. For further details canada disability tax benefits and disability tax benefits canada please visit the website.