Collecting social benefits and planning to leave Canada for a trip? Wait!

[Ciel]

Spotted this news item on Yahoo News.

OTTAWA - Snowbirds beware: The federal government will use its planned border exit-tracking system to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in social benefits now going to people who shouldn't receive them due to absences from Canada.

Newly obtained memos say the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada expect to save between about $194 million and $319 million over five years once the long-anticipated system is fully in place.
Federal officials have been working quietly to satisfy privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien's office that personal information will be properly collected, used and disclosed under the program.
Under the 2011 perimeter security pact, Canada and the United States agreed to set up co-ordinated systems to track entry and exit information from travellers.
For the moment, the tracking system involves exchanging entry information collected from people at the land border — so that data on entry to one country serves as a record of exit from the other.
The first two phases of the program have been limited to foreign nationals and permanent residents of Canada and the United States, but not citizens of either country.

The initiative was to be expanded by June 30 of last year to include information-sharing on all travellers crossing the land border.
In addition, Canada planned to begin collecting information on people leaving by plane — something the United States already does — by requiring airlines to submit passenger manifest data for outbound international flights.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/sn...m-080027196.ht

Boldface font is my emphasis. I know we've had at least a couple of discussions with SC members who were in the position of going to the US or overseas on a trip yet were getting social benefits (i.e. EI). Best to ensure one does not risk one thing for the other.

[lizzie bargain]

IIRC in order to collect EI you already have to state on each report if you were outside the country, or available and looking for work so at least in the case of EI this would only be a problem for claimants who were not reporting truthfully.

[beachdown]

About bloody time is all I can say !!!

If someone claims they haven't got a job, yet they can afford vacations, then they don't need the handouts, and it should go to legitimate / much needed claimants. People knock refugees / immigrants for collecting benefits, meanwhile a lot of local are the worst.

[brunt]

Slightly off topic, but related. From my own experience.

I had an economic rough patch back in 1998, and expanded my job search to include US companies. I received a very attractive offer from a US company, and I got ready for my move.

I like to get my ducks in a row, so about two months before my planned move, I stopped by the Service Ontario office (or whatever they were called at the time) to inform them of my impending move.

Their reaction was an immediate demand for my OHIP card that was destroyed on the spot, and I was informed that I was no longer covered by OHIP. I was still two months away from my move, and any one of a number of things could have happened, albeit unlikely, in this time that could have cancelled my move.

So for trying to do the right thing, I was immediately slammed with a potential financially life-shattering boneheaded bureaucratic move. I scrambled to get private insurance for the remaining time.

Lesson learned - if I am ever going to move out of the country again, I understand 100% that I will not be covered by OHIP once I leave, but I am sure as heck not going to tell them of my move ahead of time again.

Just thought that this information could be of use to somebody.

[Ciel]

Slightly off topic, but related. From my own experience.

I had an economic rough patch back in 1998, and expanded my job search to include US companies. I received a very attractive offer from a US company, and I got ready for my move.

I like to get my ducks in a row, so about two months before my planned move, I stopped by the Service Ontario office (or whatever they were called at the time) to inform them of my impending move.

Their reaction was an immediate demand for my OHIP card that was destroyed on the spot, and I was informed that I was no longer covered by OHIP. I was still two months away from my move, and any one of a number of things could have happened, albeit unlikely, in this time that could have cancelled my move.

So for trying to do the right thing, I was immediately slammed with a potential financially life-shattering boneheaded bureaucratic move. I scrambled to get private insurance for the remaining time.

Lesson learned - if I am ever going to move out of the country again, I understand 100% that I will not be covered by OHIP once I leave, but I am sure as heck not going to tell them of my move ahead of time again.

Just thought that this information could be of use to somebody.

Whoever did that to you was really overreacting. Two months without OHIP just because of the advance notice? Thanks for pointing out that government workers may not always exhibit common sense. That comment also extends to employment centres that might only permit local faxes despite the fact some jobs are in long-distance fax zones and applicants may very well be suitable for them. Worth knowing your centres-they are not all the same.

[Ciel]

I had another thought on the OHIP cancellation experience that Brunt posted. About 3-4 years ago, a Canadian nurse who worked in the US returned to her province to get treatment. She found out since she did not make arrangements to pay OHIP premiums during the years she worked outside of Ontario, she could not get care. The Ministry of Health had responded to the media coverage with something about a way to arrange premium payments prior to leaving the province.