More help now available at the General Division

To improve access to justice, we are expanding our navigator service. It’s now available to help people who are appealing decisions related to the following types of appeal at the General Division:

• Old Age Security appeals
• Canada Pension Plan (non-disability) appeals
• Employment Insurance appeals related to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Navigators are there to guide people who do not have legal representation through the appeal process. They answer questions and explain how appeals work. But they do it in a way that keeps the Social Security Tribunal neutral and impartial in the appeal process.  

In Employment Insurance appeals, navigators help identify potential Charter appeals. These are cases where someone argues that their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were not respected. In such cases, the navigator contacts the person appealing to:

• explain what is a Charter appeal;
• explain their responsibilities if they proceed with a Charter argument;
• provide information on what type of documents they can submit to support their appeal; and
• answer their questions.

We first introduced the navigator service in 2019 for Canada Pension Plan disability appeals at the General Division. We expanded the service in 2020 to appeals at the Appeal Division.

And we’re not done: later this year, we’ll expand the navigator service to include group appeals related to Employment Insurance at the General Division.

We make it a priority to put people first and support those who need it. The feedback we’ve received from people benefitting from this service has been extremely positive.

For more information, visit our navigator service page.