Canada Pension Plan Disability - CPP-D

Denied CPP

CPP-D in Canada is a section of the Canada Pension Plan legislation that is supposed to provide supplemental payments should you, as a working contributor, become disabled.

As and applicant, you need a best friend in this particular endeavour.

To the rescue is: DCAC - Disability Claims Advocacy Clinic Inc. 

The above is separate and independent from the following:
According to Canada, under the new CPP-D legislation, disability is defined as

"a severe disability, meaning that you are so incapacitated that you cannot work full-time, part time, or seasonally to support yourself. According to the legislation, a disability is severe if it results in the person being “incapable regularly of pursuing any substantially gainful occupation”

(Section or sub-para 42 [2] [a] [i]) Determining what is considered “substantially gainful” involves looking at a number of factors, such as the level of your earnings, and how well you are able to do job tasks

. • You must have a prolonged disability, meaning that your disability must be expected to continue for a long time or a significant time after your application. According to the legislation, a disability When a person deemed disabled
(2) For the purposes of this Act, .

(a) a person shall be considered to be disabled only if he is determined in prescribed manner to have a severe and prolonged mental or physical disability, and for the purposes of this paragraph,

(i) a disability is severe only if by reason thereof the person in respect of whom the determination is made is incapable regularly of pursuing any substantially gainful occupation, and

(ii) a disability is prolonged only if it is determined in prescribed manner that the disability is likely to be long continued and of indefinite duration or is likely to result in death; and

(b) a person shall be deemed to have become or to have ceased to be disabled at such time as is determined in the prescribed manner to be the time when the person became or ceased to be, as the case may be, disabled, but in no case shall a person be deemed to have become disabled earlier than fifteen months before the time of the making of any application in respect of which the determination is made.

Each one of these words have their own meaning in Canada Pension Plan disability benefit claims.

The disability has to be severe – as defined as the claimant must be “incapable regularly of pursuing any substantially gainful occupation”. 

Substantially gainful occupation has been defined by the Canada Pension Plan as being able to earn an amount equivalent to the the maximum monthly CPP retirement pension.

As of January 2012, the maximum monthly CPP retirement pension is $986.67.

(Section 42 [2] [a] [ii]). “Prolonged” at the time of application does not refer to past duration of the disability, although that may help show it is prolonged. The question is whether the disability is likely to be long continued in the future.