Service Canada OAS auto-enrolment and deferral delays, Digi Mart USA News: Service Canada is automatically enrolling some seniors for Old Age Security at age 65 even after they requested a deferral, creating difficulties for those who still earn income and want to maximize their pension benefits.
Several financial advisors say Service Canada is taking up to a year or more to process their clients’ deferral requests. These clients are spending time calling Service Canada agents to reverse their auto-enrolment and asking for guidance on what to do with payments received in the meantime.
“If you have clients who plan to defer their OAS, prepare them for the fact it won’t be easy and doesn’t appear to be guaranteed to work,” said Adam Chapman, a certified financial planner at YES Money in London, Ont. As recently as September, Mr.
Chapman said one of his clients was auto-enrolled in OAS after having called Service Canada to defer.
Liana Brault, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which oversees Service Canada, said in an emailed response to The Globe and Mail that the department processes most deferral requests before auto-enrolled clients begin receiving OAS benefits. Ms.
Brault said Service Canada “makes every effort to process client requests for the deferral of OAS benefits within the standard time frame,” which is 120 days, but that “processing times may vary depending on workload volumes and the complexity of individual cases.”
The OAS pension, which is separate from the Canada Pension Plan, provides Canadians with a monthly benefit starting at age 65. When seniors’ income exceeds a certain threshold for the year, their OAS is clawed back.
In 2013, OAS rules were changed to allow deferrals: for every month someone defers after turning 65, they receive 0.6 per cent more in OAS benefits. After turning 70, there is no benefit to deferring.
Service Canada also began auto-enrolling Canadians for OAS in 2013, sending a notification letter the month after someone turns 64. If the person does not want OAS to start at 65, they must contact Service Canada.
Anyone who does not receive an automatic enrolment letter must contact Service Canada to start OAS. Advisors say many clients who are still working at 65 and earning income above the clawback threshold choose to defer.
Cameron Graham, a certified financial planner with Sterling Mutuals Inc. in Sarnia, Ont., said one of his clients who is still working submitted a deferral request letter to a Service Canada location in August 2025, four months before turning 65.
Service Canada did not process the request until this past August, and the client received OAS payments until then. The client now wants to start his OAS pension in January 2027, but cannot apply through Service Canada’s online platform until the agency processes his repayment, Mr.
Graham said. “Our workaround, after chatting with a Service Canada employee, was to paper-file the OAS application, which could also take six months to process,” he said.
“[We have] very little hope for him to receive his first payment in January.”
Mr. Chapman said two of his clients, a couple, called Service Canada together to defer their OAS.
The woman’s deferral request was processed, but the man’s was not. He did not learn he had been auto-enrolled until the couple returned from an extended trip to find several OAS cheques addressed to him in their mailbox.
Service Canada told Mr. Chapman’s client he cannot reverse his auto-enrolment because it has no record of his deferral request.
OAS rules allow someone to cancel enrolment and repay what they have received within six months after payments begin, but his client missed that deadline. Mr.
Chapman said some clients are able to reverse payments if caught in time. “But with [Service Canada’s] processing delays, it seems to open up a window for people like my clients who got caught not realizing these cheques were even showing up.”
Marc Sabourin, a portfolio manager with Trans Canada Wealth Management at Harbourfront Wealth Management Inc. in Winnipeg, said in an email to The Globe and Mail that one of his clients informed Service Canada in July 2025, two months before turning 65, that he wanted to defer OAS payments, but was auto-enrolled anyway.
Every month since, the client has contacted Service Canada to have the auto-enrolment reversed, and the issue had not been resolved as of September, when Mr. Sabourin last met with the client.
ESDC spokesperson Samuelle Carbonneau said in a statement that Service Canada is focused on ensuring seniors receive their benefits. “Urgent and dire needs cases are prioritized and are typically processed within two to three business days,” she said.
Since OAS auto-enrolment was introduced, more than 2.1 million Canadians have received their payments without having to apply. Ms.
Brault said that if Service Canada receives a deferral request within six months after someone begins receiving OAS benefits, “the deferral will be honoured, subject to the repayment of any OAS benefits already paid.” A request received after that “will most likely not be granted,” unless, for example, Service Canada caused the delays, in which case the client would not be penalized.
Clients who received OAS payments but want to defer should set aside the funds until their deferral request has been accepted, she said, at which point they can repay them.
