How Poland "buried alive" Canadian pensioners
Because of bureaucracy, pensioners who were alive and well were declared dead.
Two Canadian retirees recently encountered an unusual problem. Service Canada sent strange letters to their wives. In them, the agency expressed its condolences about their husbands' deaths and invited them to apply for spousal death benefits. At first, both victims thought it was some kind of silly joke, but then they stopped receiving their pensions from Canada. Then they went to the agency themselves to prove that they were alive and in good health. Both men are now under 70 years old.
These pensioners are Polish citizens who have a residence permit in Canada and have been working there for a long time. Their pension is paid by both Poland and Canada. Foreigners are entitled to a Canadian pension, but it depends on migration status, time spent in the country, contributions to CPP and some other factors. There are a total of 7 pension programs in Canada.
The Office replied to the pensioners that it was Poland, their home country, that had sent notifications of their deaths. The men received an apology and their pensions were resumed, but they wanted to look into the problem further.
In Poland they could not be declared dead because the local pension fund continued to send them payments. So they contacted the agency directly. The clue shook their imagination: It turned out that the Polish pension fund had really sent the documents to Canada. And the Polish side had also made mistakes in the translation of official documents. They simply transferred them through an online translator and did not even check them. Thus, instead of the correct "date of decision" in the papers was written "date of death". That's why the Canadian agency considered the pensioners dead.
The Polish pension fund has already apologized to the Canadian government and the victims. From now on, they will be very careful about the translation of documents.
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