Without a death certificate, Brenda Moberg faces legal and financial hurdles to access her husband's pension
Brenda Moberg, whose husband Earl went missing over a year ago, is seeking legal assistance after the federal government denied her request for a Canada Pension Plan (CPP) survivor's benefit, as reported by CBC News.
Earl, 81, who had dementia, was last seen on December 12, 2023, in Winnipeg's River East area.
Despite extensive search efforts, his body has not been found, leaving Brenda unable to obtain a death certificate without a costly legal process.
Since the summer, Brenda has been striving to secure 60 percent of her husband's CPP but has faced bureaucratic challenges impacting her financially and emotionally.
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), the department overseeing CPP, suspended Earl's pension after Brenda reported his disappearance and inquired about survivor benefits.
ESDC informed her that a death certificate is mandatory to process the survivor's benefit application.
Without it, Brenda would need to engage an estate lawyer to gather evidence, such as medical records or police reports, to have Earl legally presumed dead under Manitoba's Presumption of Death and Declaration of Absence Act.
“I have proof that he's been missing, we've been trying to find him, and he may never be found, but who knows? So, I just can't go on like this forever,” Brenda told CBC.
After months of communication with ESDC, Brenda was encouraged to submit an application on January 9, despite lacking the required documentation.
On February 6, she received an official denial letter stating that her application could not be approved without proof of death. Brenda immediately appealed the decision.
Initially hesitant to hire an estate lawyer due to estimated legal fees of up to $5,000, she now faces the alternative of waiting seven years for a court declaration of death.
In such cases, ESDC would provide only 12 months of retroactive payments from the application date, resulting in a loss of six years' worth of survivor benefits.
ESDC stated, “This requirement helps protect applicants by preventing situations where such individuals are required to repay months, or even years, of survivor's pension because a missing or lost contributor is later found. It also ensures program integrity and protects the contributory plan against the potential of fraudulent or erroneous claims.”
Brenda has consulted multiple estate lawyers who advised her to wait until late summer or early fall, as the two-year mark of Earl's disappearance approaches, to seek a presumption of death.
“We've accepted the fact that he is not coming back, and I think we're planning a little family memorial this summer,” she said.
In Canada, the CPP provides survivor benefits to eligible spouses or common-law partners of deceased contributors. To qualify, the deceased must have made sufficient contributions to the CPP, and the survivor must provide proof of death, typically a death certificate.
Without this documentation, survivors may face significant legal and financial hurdles to access benefits.
According to the Government of Canada, the survivor's pension amount depends on factors such as the deceased's contributions and the survivor's age at the time of death.
For survivors aged 65 or older, the pension is 60 percent of the deceased's retirement pension. For those under 65, it consists of a flat-rate portion plus 37.5 percent of the deceased's retirement pension.
The issue of unclaimed pension benefits is a growing concern in Canada. A report by the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) highlighted that nearly 200,000 pension plan members in Ontario are considered missing, leaving behind $3.6bn in unclaimed entitlements.
According to Benefits and Pension Monitor, the NIA emphasizes the need for coordinated efforts to reconnect individuals with their rightful pension benefits.
Brenda's confidant, Carole Zoerb, has faced similar challenges. Her ex-husband, diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, died in March 2015.
Three years later, she applied for the survivor's benefit but was denied because they had not completed a credit pension split at the time of their divorce.
Her appeal was also denied in November 2019. “Losing out on the benefit didn't harm me personally, financially, and the reason I applied was just [out of] curiosity,” she said.
According to ESDC, applicants are ineligible for the survivor's benefit if they aren't legally married or in a common-law relationship with the deceased CPP contributor.
Separated legal spouses are also ineligible if they had a credit pension split approved in January 2025 or later.
These cases underscore the complexities and challenges individuals face when attempting to access survivor benefits in situations where legal documentation is difficult to obtain.
