Claimant's CPP Disability Pension Appeal Dismissed

OUTCOME: Dismissed

Citation: SB  v  [RESPONDENT[NAME] , 2026  [NAME]  264 Social Security Tribunal of Canada General Division – Income Security Section Decision Appellant: [redacted] Representative: [NAME] Respondent: [redacted] [RESPONDENT[NAME] reconsideration decision dated January 3, 2025 (issued by Service Canada) Tribunal member: [NAME] of hearing: Teleconference Hearing date: May 26, 2026 Hearing participants: Appellant Appellant’s representative Decision date: May 29, 2026 File number: GP-25-579 On this page Decision Overview What the Appellant must prove Reasons for my decision Conclusion Decision [ 1 ] The appeal is dismissed. [ 2 ] The Appellant, S. B., isn’t eligible for a [NAME] ( [NAME] ) disability pension. This decision explains why I am dismissing the appeal. Overview [ 3 ] The Appellant is 57 years old. She worked in fast food. She bases her [NAME] disability appeal on chronic pain and diabetes. She says that she has been disabled since December 2014, when she last worked. Footnote 1 [ 4 ] The Appellant applied for a [NAME] disability pension on July 5, 2023. The [RESPONDENT[NAME] (Minister) refused her application. The Appellant appealed the Minister’s decision to the Social Security Tribunal’s General Division. [ 5 ] The Appellant says that she is disabled from working largely because of her pain. She says that her back pain caused her limitations to standing and bending. Her left arm pain limited her ability to lift and carry. She says that she had anxiety and panic attacks that further prevented her ability to work. Footnote 2 [ 6 ] The Minister says that the evidence doesn’t support a finding of disability under the [NAME] . The Minister says that the Appellant’s psychological conditions were managed with one antidepressant and the medical evidence didn’t show sever findings in her spine. The Minister says that the evidence doesn’t support that she tried an alternate job better suited to her standing limitation. Footnote 3 What the Appellant must prove [ 7 ] For the Appellant to succeed, she must prove she has a disability that was severe and prolonged by December 18, 2018. This date is based on her [NAME] contributions. Footnote 4 She must also prove that she continues to be disabled. Footnote 5 [ 8 ] The [NAME] defines “severe” and “prolonged.” [ 9 ] A disability is severe if it makes an appellant incapable regularly of pursuing any substantially gainful occupation. Footnote 6 A disability is prolonged if it is likely to be long continued and of indefinite duration, or is likely to result in death. Footnote 7 [ 10 ] This means the Appellant’s disability can’t have an expected recovery date. The disability must be expected to keep the Appellant out of the workforce for a long time. [ 11 ] The Appellant must prove she has a severe and prolonged disability on a balance of probabilities. She must show it is more likely than not that she is disabled. Reasons for my decision [ 12 ] I find that the Appellant hasn’t proven she had a severe and prolonged disability by December 31, 2018. I reached this decision by considering whether her condition was severe. Because I found that her condition wasn’t severe, I didn’t consider whether it was prolonged. Was the Appellant’s disability severe? [ 13 ] The Appellant’s disability wasn’t severe. I reached this finding by considering several factors. I explain these factors below. The Appellant’s functional limitations affected her ability to work [ 14 ] The Appellant has: anxiety disorder chronic obstructive pulmonary disease left shoulder bursitis, supraspinatus tendonitis, and degenerative changes mechanical back pain and sciatica ulnar neuropathy at the left elbow (mild) [ 15 ] However, I can’t focus on the Appellant’s diagnoses. Footnote 8 Instead, I must focus on whether she has functional limitations that got in the way of her earning a living. Footnote 9 When I do this, I have to look at all of the Appellant’s medical conditions (not just the main one) and think about how they affected her ability to work. Footnote 10 [ 16 ] I find that the Appellant has functional limitations that affected her ability to work. What the Appellant says about her functional limitations [ 17 ] The Appellant says that her medical conditions have resulted in functional limitations that affect her ability to work by the end of 2018. She says: she had back pain that radiated and got worse throughout the day her pain caused sleep difficulties and she woke unrefreshed she couldn’t stand for a long time sciatica pain caused her a limitation to sitting her left knee swelled up and gave out lifting and carrying made her pain symptoms worse having diabetes causes her to need to eat multiple times per day because of her diabetes, her blood sugar levels would go low while working at X and she would need to take breaks [ 18 ] The Appellant testified that she worked at X until 2014. She was responsible for making sandwiches, handling cash, and serving clients. This required prolonged standing. She didn’t have any accommodations in this role. What the medical evidence says about the Appellant’s functional limitations [ 19 ] The Appellant must provide some medical evidence to support that her functional limitations affected her ability to work no later than December 31, 2018. Footnote 11 I didn’t consider some conditions in this analysis [ 20 ] I didn’t consider some conditions and their associated limitations into the [NAME] disability analysis. I have identified each and explained why below. [ 21 ] At the hearing, I asked the Appellant if her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease caused her any limitations. She said that it didn’t. Because of that, I didn’t factor limitations from this condition into the analysis. [ 22 ] The medical evidence doesn’t support that the Appellant was diagnosed with diabetes by the end of 2018. The evidence supports it was around October 2020 when she was likely diagnosed. Footnote 12 Because of this, I didn’t consider limitations from diabetes in this analysis. [ 23 ] The medical evidence doesn’t support that the Appellant had hip pain that impacted her ability to work or left knee issue that caused swelling and gave way by the end of 2018. I understand that she had knee and hip pain many years later and that she had imaging done. Footnote 13 Because these symptoms weren’t supported by the medical evidence by the end of 2018, I didn’t consider them in this analysis. The Appellant had medical conditions by the end of 2018 [ 24 ] The medical evidence supports that the Appellant reported body pain in her neck, low back, and some radiation to the left scapula. She had a limitation to prolonged standing during her fast-food shifts in 2013 and 2014. She told her doctor she had difficulty working her shifts. Footnote 14 [ 25 ] The medical report of June 2023 notes that the Appellant has degenerative disc disease with a symptom date of onset in 1993. She had limitations to lifting, repetitive bending, twisting, and back extension. Footnote 15 I accepted these limitations. [ 26 ] The Appellant says that her sciatica pain limited her ability to sit for prolonged periods by 2018. In my review of the evidence, I didn’t find mention of the existence of sciatica until well after 2018. The medical report of 2023 also didn’t list a limitation to sitting. Footnote 16 Due to the passage of time, I prefer the documentary medical evidence over the Appellant’s recollection of her limitations almost one decade ago. [ 27 ] The Appellant was diagnosed with anxiety . The records note that her anxiety was stable on Celexa. In April 2018, she told her doctor that she didn’t have any anxiety or panic attacks. In November 2018, her anxiety was controlled. Her anxiety continued to be stable with no panic attacks into 2019. Footnote 17 [ 28 ] The medical evidence supports that the Appellant’s anxiety was effectively managed with medication by the end of 2018. There was no mention of panic attacks in the medical evidence close to the end of 2018. She also didn’t mention limitations to anxiety from her last job. I wasn’t satisfied that she had ongoing limitations from anxiety that impacted her ability to work by 2018. [ 29 ] The Appellant had testing which showed left ulnar nerve neuropathy (mild). She had left shoulder pain that radiated into the left arm. Footnote 18 The medical report from June 2023 notes left shoulder bursitis and supraspinatus tendonitis . Her date of symptom onset was in 2018. She had limitations to heavy lifting and working above shoulder level. Footnote 19 [ 30 ] The Appellant reported disturbed sleep in April 2018. Footnote 20 I accept that she had poor sleep which may have caused fatigue. [ 31 ] The medical evidence supports that the Appellant’s cumulative medical conditions and fatigue impacted her abilities to do doing heavy lifting or carrying, repetitive bending, twisting, back extension, and prolonged standing. [ 32 ] The Appellant followed medical advice. I will not address this section here because it wasn’t the basis on which I made my decision to dismiss the appeal. The Appellant could work in the real world by 2015 [ 33 ] When I am deciding whether the Appellant could work, I can’t just look at her medical conditions and how they affect what she could do. I must also consider factors such as her: age level of education language abilities past work and life experience Footnote 21 [ 34 ] The Appellant’s background and personal characteristics impact her employability to some degree. In 2015, she was 46 years old. She had twenty years before the usual age of retirement in Canada. This supports the ability to retrain. She has high school education and speaks English. She is right hand dominant. Footnote 22 Her background work experience is limited to light physical work. She is suited to direct entry jobs. [ 35 ] When I factor in the Appellant’s limitations by 2018, she isn’t suited to physical work. However, she had residual work capacity for sedentary work. Her limitations didn’t preclude this. After considering her real-world characteristics, she likely retained the ability to do direct entry sedentary work. [ 36 ] The Appellant doesn’t think she could do a sedentary job because of her left shoulder pain and because of her back pain impacted her ability to sit for a long time. I note that she is right-hand dominant. [ 37 ] I was not persuaded that her left shoulder pain would render her unable to answer a phone as part of a sedentary job. I also couldn’t find medical evidence supporting a limitation to sitting by the relevant time. She may likely require microbreaks to stretch and change positions, but that doesn’t change the conclusion I came to. Allowing for breaks and switching positions is a reasonable request to make in the workplace. [NAME] support residual work capacity [ 38 ] [NAME] support residual work capacity. I gave significant weight to the medical evidence about what she could and could not do because of her pain and limitations. [ 39 ] I also note that the Appellant did some type of labour after 2018 caring for an adult and performing light duties. She didn’t claim that she couldn’t do this role because of her limitations. This further supports that she likely had some type of residual work capacity by 2018. [ 40 ] The medical records note that in August 2018 the Appellant injured her foot when she was renovating her house. Footnote 23 At the hearing, she refuted this and said that she didn’t do any housing renovations. She testified that the injury occurred while she was sitting at a table, got up, and tripped over a chair leg. [ 41 ] I prefer the charting records over the Appellant’s testimony. It might have been difficult for her to accurately recall details years ago due to the passage of time. I don’t think it is likely that the doctor made a mistake and grossly misunderstood the reported mechanism of injury which was charted in a contemporaneous record. [ 42 ] Second, the Appellant’s ability to renovate her home is plausible given her other activities noted in the medical file around this time. In a record from October 2020, it was noted that she kept active. She went for walks, had hobbies, and watched grandchildren. Footnote 24 The Appellant didn’t try to find and keep a suitable job [ 43 ] If the Appellant can work in the real world, she must show that she tried to find and keep a suitable job. She must also show her efforts weren’t successful because of her medical conditions. Footnote 25 Finding and keeping a suitable job includes retraining or looking for a job she can do with her functional limitations. Footnote 26 [ 44 ] The Appellant didn’t try to work. She didn’t apply to any jobs. [ 45 ] Therefore, I can’t find she had a severe disability by December 31, 2018. The Appellant’s cited authorities [ 46 ] The Appellant’s representative cited nine authorities to rely on. Footnote 27 Many of these were important cases that instruct decision makers on various parts of the [NAME] disability test. [ 47 ] However, these cases don’t shift my conclusion. In fact, many of them guided my decision making and were in fact cited in this decision. Because of this, I don’t see a need to address each case individually. I will address the cases that where chronic pain was a claimed disabling condition because this was a key part of the Appellant’s case. [ 48 ] A case called [APPELLANT] addressed the existence of pain. Chronic pain is a medical condition that can be genuinely disabling. Footnote 28 Pain is subjective by nature. My conclusion aligns with [APPELLANT]. I acknowledge the Appellant’s pain, but her functional abilities support residual work capacity. [ 49 ] Functional capacity can be assessed objectively. The Appellant’s demonstrated functional capacities to engage in meaningful activities that require physical effort and responsibility. Despite her pain she was able to maintain her hobbies, care for grandchildren, care for an adult, and plausibly participate in home renovations at or after 2018. Her restrictions from pain didn’t prevent her from showing these functional abilities. [ 50 ] In [NAME] , this appellant had chronic back and knee pain. He also had paranoid delusions from untreated mental health issues. He thought his doctor was crazy, which impacted his treatment adherence. The Tribunal found that he didn’t have work capacity. Footnote 29 [ 51 ] In [APPELLANT], the appellant had knee and shoulder pain with anxiety. He had a limited ability to sit, stand, and he couldn’t get out of bed some days. The Federal Court decision noted that the prior decision was unreasonable because it lacked a rational chain of analysis and jumped to the unsupported conclusion that the appellant had residual work capacity. Footnote 30 [ 52 ] I didn’t do that here. I explained how I came to the conclusion that the Appellant retained residual work capacity for entry level sedentary work, given her real world characteristics and her supported limitations by the end of 2018. [ 53 ] The [NAME] decision was about whether the appellant stopped being disabled and was no longer eligible for a [NAME] disability pension. The Tribunal decided that the appellant stopped being disabled when she resumed working regularly after developing an online curriculum. Footnote 31 This case wasn’t persuasive because it wasn’t similar to the current appeal. The Appellant in the current appeal didn’t resume working. Conclusion [ 54 ] I find that the Appellant isn’t eligible for a [NAME] disability pension because her disability wasn’t severe. Because I have found that her disability wasn’t severe, I didn’t have to consider whether it was prolonged. [ 55 ] This means the appeal is dismissed. Footnotes Footnote 1 See GD2-57 to 75. Return to footnote 1 referrer Footnote 2 See GD1-9. Return to footnote 2 referrer Footnote 3 See GD6. Return to footnote 3 referrer Footnote 4 Service Canada uses an appellant’s years of [NAME] contributions to calculate their coverage period, or “minimum qualifying period” ( MQP ). The end of the coverage period is called the MQP date. See section 44(2) of the [NAME] . The Appellant’s [NAME] contributions are on GD2-7. Return to footnote 4 referrer Footnote 5 In Canada (Attorney General)  v  [APPELLANT] , 2020  FC  1093, the Federal Court said that the appellant has to show a severe and prolonged disability by the end of their minimum qualifying period and continuously after that. See also [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2011  FCA  318. Return to footnote 5 referrer Footnote 6 Section 42(2)(a) of the [NAME] gives this definition of severe disability . Section 68.1 of the [NAME] says a job is “substantially gainful” if it pays a salary or wages equal to or greater than the maximum annual amount a person could receive as a disability pension. Return to footnote 6 referrer Footnote 7 Section 42(2)(a) of the [NAME] gives this definition of prolonged disability. Return to footnote 7 referrer Footnote 8 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2013  FCA  81. Return to footnote 8 referrer Footnote 9 [NAME]  v  Canada ([NAME]) , 2008  FCA  33. Return to footnote 9 referrer Footnote 10 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2011  FCA  47. Return to footnote 10 referrer Footnote 11 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2008  FCA  377; and Canada (Attorney General)  v  [NAME] , 2020  FC  206. Return to footnote 11 referrer Footnote 12 See GD2-155, 158, 161, and 166. Return to footnote 12 referrer Footnote 13 See GD2-191. Return to footnote 13 referrer Footnote 14 See GD5-15, 82, and 94 to 95. Return to footnote 14 referrer Footnote 15 See GD4-145. Return to footnote 15 referrer Footnote 16 See GD2-180 and 4-28 to 32. Return to footnote 16 referrer Footnote 17 See GD5-186, 188, 252, and 285. Return to footnote 17 referrer Footnote 18 See GD5-73 and 81. Return to footnote 18 referrer Footnote 19 See GD4-144. Return to footnote 19 referrer Footnote 20 See GD5-188. Return to footnote 20 referrer Footnote 21 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2001  FCA  248. Return to footnote 21 referrer Footnote 22 See GD4-116. Return to footnote 22 referrer Footnote 23 See GD5-226. Return to footnote 23 referrer Footnote 24 See GD5-330. Return to footnote 24 referrer Footnote 25 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2003  FCA  117. Return to footnote 25 referrer Footnote 26 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2008  FCA  150. Return to footnote 26 referrer Footnote 27 See GD7. The Federal Court decisions are binding. The decisions from the Social Security Tribunal are not. I also note that the cases had bolded sections which at the hearing I said I assumed were done to draw my attention to those paragraphs. Return to footnote 27 referrer Footnote 28 [NAME])  v  Martin [2003] SCC 54. Return to footnote 28 referrer Footnote 29 [NAME]  v  [RESPONDENT[NAME] , 2016  [NAME]

19. Return to footnote 29 referrer Footnote 30 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General of Canada), 2021  FCA  108. Return to footnote 30 referrer Footnote 31 [NAME]  v  [RESPONDENT[NAME] , 2026  [NAME]  270. Return to footnote 31 referrer