The federal government has begun imposing financial sanctions on Canada Life after months of outcry from public servants, retirees and their families who were left fighting for medical claims to be covered.
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) said it “is taking steps to address startup delays faced by Canada Life and has begun to apply financial consequence mechanisms under the contract,” according to a statement from spokesperson Michèle LaRose.
She said PSPC is not yet in a position to share details about the nature of the sanctions.
On July 1, 2023, the federal government transferred responsibility for the public service health insurance plan from Sun Life to Canada Life.
The company had a six-month transitional period before the government could begin assessing the level of service, according to tendering documents for the $514-million contract.
For months, the federal government has repeatedly stated that it’s prioritizing collaboration with Canada Life to improve service, before resorting to financial penalties or withholding payments.
During that time, CBC News heard from several members of the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) complaining of long waits, failing to get through to an agent and claims denied without explanation.
A spokesperson for the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) said she hopes the sanctions will serve as a warning to motivate change, but said they’re only a first stab at fixing what’s wrong.
“These sanctions really are only to acknowledge the fact that Canada Life is not respecting its contract,” said Stéphanie Montreuil.
“It is not compensating our members. It is not ensuring that there’s a plan in place so that this does not continue to happen, so it really just is a start — and the bare minimum at that.”
Canada Life says early challenges ‘resolved’
A Canada Life spokesperson said on Wednesday that early challenges related to the transition “have been resolved.”
“Canada Life is delivering benefits under this plan in Canada within expected service levels, including answering calls within 30 seconds and processing electronic claims within 1 day on average,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
The president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAPSO) said her members are frustrated and angry about delays in coverage outside Canada.
Pamela Isfeld welcomed the news of sanctions as “a positive step,” but said the government is still responsible for actually fixing the underlying problem.
“As a taxpayer, I’m happy to learn that they are not going to continue to just keep paying this very lucrative contract, even when they’re not receiving the service,” she said.
“But as the representative of 2,000 foreign service officers here in Canada, we still have the same problem with the lack of an adequate health insurance plan, especially abroad and especially in the U.S. where the problems are the worst,” Isfeld added.
“That still needs to be fixed.”
Pamela Isfeld, president and chair of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers, says Canadian foreign service officers have reported challenges accessing health-care coverage since MSH International took over administration of out-of-country claims. (Jean-Francois Benoit/CBC)
Subcontractor MSH International handles the international side of the plan, including emergency travel coverage and comprehensive coverage.
As far as PSPC is concerned, though, the ultimate responsibility still rests with Canada Life.
“As the contractor for this project, Canada Life is responsible for ensuring that all deliverables set out in the contract are met, including work that is subcontracted out to other companies,” LaRose said.
Struggle to get claims covered abroad
Isfeld said delays in processing member claims and those of family members are “enormous.”
“In some cases, it’s a question of large sums of money, and when the refund comes, there’s just some amount in their bank account. It doesn’t match the amount claimed and there’s no explanation,” she said in French.
That’s what happened to Sonia Rioux, who lives in Europe with her military spouse. She was waiting for a refund for medical costs from a trip to Australia in July.
The couple was in a remote region preparing for a hiking excursion when Rioux began suffering abdominal pain. It was getting worse and worse, so she went to a clinic where nurses decided to send her to the closest hospital by air for an emergency operation.
She estimates the total cost at more than $8,000. It was the end of her trip — but only the beginning of her struggles with MSH International.
Sonia Rioux says she’s still waiting for a refund of medical expenses from a trip to Australia in July. (Submitted by Sonia Rioux)
Rioux said she began her claim with MSH International at the end of August. In mid-April, she received a refund of about $2,000, without any clarity on which bill was being covered.
Rioux said she feels powerless and trapped because nothing she’s tried seems to work, leaving her with “no escape.”
“It becomes almost anxiety-inducing,” she said in French. “I won’t give up, but I find it exhausting.”
Unions looking at legal remedies
PAFSO has decided to follow the example of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and study all possible legal remedies to force the government to provide a functioning health plan.
“It’s the responsibility of the employer, and it’s time they find a way to fulfil it,” said Isfeld. “We haven’t ruled out any legal options at this point. Everything is on the table.”
PAFSO’s lawyers are studying whether it would be possible to get a ruling forcing the government to put in place a temporary system that would allow employers to take out private insurance, she explained.
The union has also filed a policy grievance with the Treasury Board. The document obtained by Radio-Canada states that the switch to a new insurance provider violates the collective agreement because it “doesn’t take account of the members’ rights to a functioning health insurance system.”
PSAC, Canada’s largest public sector union, filed a similar grievance in February.
The two unions are demanding all affected public servants be compensated for the harm they’ve suffered including stress and pain, as well as financial losses.
PSAC national president Chris Aylward said in a written statement he encourages all its members to file individual grievances to put pressure on the employer.
Montreuil said PIPSC is now in the process of submitting a grievance.
Government ‘working daily’ with insurer
The federal government said it is still following up with Canada Life to ensure it meets its contractual obligations.
“We are working daily with Canada Life to make it understand that the company it subcontracted for international coverage must improve the situation and ensure that contractual obligations are respected to the letter,” Treasury Board President Anita Anand said in a written statement.
“All public servants deserve the highest quality of service for their healthcare plans.”
President of the Treasury Board Anita Anand speaks during a news conference, in Ottawa on Jan. 29. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Treasury Board Secretariat spokesperson Joie Huynh noted that Canada Life has taken several measures to improve service since November, and that there have been “important improvements in wait times and processing delays.”
She added that Canada Life is working with MSH International to put in place an action plan for international insurance coverage.
Employees of Global Affairs Canada who are living abroad can also count on interest-free cash advances from the government to cover medical costs until they can be refunded by MSH International.
A Canada Life spokesperson said in an email that the company working with MSH International and the federal government to improve the level of service for public servants and retirees living or travelling abroad.
MSH International’s program delivery director, Jina Park, said the company has put in place measures to speed up processing times, reduce call centre wait times and prioritize urgent cases.
“We have doubled our claims processing capacity and continue to add more staff to meet demand that was higher than projected in the RFP,” she wrote in an email.
All in a Day8:46The federal government is imposing financial restrictions on Canada Life
Pamela Isfeld is the president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers.
LANGLEY, B.C. – Police in Langley, B.C., say one person is dead in a crash between a car and a motorcycle on Highway 1 that shut down the route for hours.
Mounties say their initial investigation indicates both vehicles were travelling east when they collided shortly before 4:20 a.m. near 240 Street on the highway.
The motorcycle rider died from their injuries.
Highway 1 was closed for a long stretch through Langley for about 11 hours while police investigated.
RCMP say their integrated collision analysis reconstruction team went to the scene.
The Mounties are asking anyone who witnessed the crash or who may have dash-camera footage from the area to call them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A court has been asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person in a case that may go further than any other in trying to establish the rights of nature in Canada.
“It really is that simple,” said Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Manitoba Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which filed the suit Thursday in Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg.
“The lake has its own rights. The lake is a living being.”
The argument is being used to help force the provincial government to conduct an environmental assessment of how Manitoba Hydro regulates lake levels for power generation. Those licences come up for renewal in August 2026, and the chiefs argue that the process under which those licences were granted was outdated and inadequate.
They quote Manitoba’s Clean Environment Commission, which said in 2015 that the licences were granted on the basis of poor science, poor consultation and poor public accountability.
Meanwhile, the statement of claim says “the (plaintiffs) describe the lake’s current state as being so sick that she is dying.”
It describes a long list of symptoms.
Fish species have disappeared, declined, migrated or become sick and inedible, the lawsuit says. Birds and wildlife including muskrat, beavers, duck, geese, eagles and gulls are vanishing from the lake’s wetlands.
Foods and traditional medicines — weekay, bulrush, cattail, sturgeon and wild rice — are getting harder to find, the document says, and algae blooms and E. coli bacteria levels have increased.
Invasive species including zebra mussels and spiny water fleas are now common, the document says.
“In Anishinaabemowin, the (plaintiffs) refer to the water in Lake Winnipeg as moowaakamiim (the water is full of feces) or wiinaagamin (the water is polluted, dirty and full of garbage),” the lawsuit says.
It blames many of the problems on Manitoba Hydro’s management of the lake waters to prevent it flushing itself clean every year.
“She is unable to go through her natural cleansing cycle and becomes stagnant and struggles to sustain other beings like animals, birds, fish, plants and people,” the document says.
The defendants, Manitoba Hydro and the provincial government, have not filed statements of defence. Both declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Daniels said it makes sense to consider the vast lake — one of the world’s largest — as alive.
“We’re living in an era of reconciliation, there’s huge changes in the mindsets of regular Canadians and science has caught up a lot in understanding. It’s not a huge stretch to understand the lake as a living entity.”
The idea has been around in western science since the 1970s. The Gaia hypothesis, which remains highly disputed, proposed the Earth is a single organism with its own feedback loops that regulate conditions and keep them favourable to life.
The courts already recognize non-human entities such as corporations as persons.
Personhood has also been claimed for two Canadian rivers.
Quebec’s Innu First Nation have claimed that status for the Magpie River, and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta is seeking standing for the Athabasca River in regulatory hearings. The Magpie’s status hasn’t been tested in court and Alberta’s energy regulator has yet to rule on the Athabasca.
Matt Hulse, a lawyer who argued the Athabasca River should be treated as a person, noted the Manitoba lawsuit quotes the use of “everyone” in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The term ‘everyone’ isn’t defined, which could help (the chiefs),” he said.
But the Charter typically focuses on individual rights, Hulse added.
“What they’re asking for is substantive rights to be given to a lake. What does ‘liberty’ mean to a lake?
“Those kinds of cases require a bit of a paradigm shift. I think the Southern Chiefs Organization will face an uphill battle.”
Hulse said the Manitoba case goes further than any he’s aware of in seeking legal rights for a specific environment.
Daniels said he believes the courts and Canadians are ready to recognize humans are not separate from the world in which they live and that the law should recognize that.
“We need to understand our lakes and our environment as something we have to live in cohesion with.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – MPs on the public safety and national security committee voted unanimously to launch an investigation into an alleged Russian ploy to dupe right-wing influencers into sowing division among Americans.
A U.S. indictment filed earlier this month charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a US$10-million scheme that purportedly used social media personalities to distribute content with Russian government messaging.
While not explicitly mentioned in court documents, the details match up with Tenet Media, founded by Canadian Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who is identified as her husband on social media.
The committee will invite Chen and Donovan to testify on the matter, as well as Lauren Southern, who is among the Tenet cast of personalities.
The motion, which was brought forward by Liberal MP Pam Damoff and passed on Thursday, also seeks to invite civil society representatives and disinformation experts on the matter.
Court documents allege the Russians created a fake investor who provided money to the social media company to hire the influencers, paying the founders significant fees, including through a company account in Canada.
The U.S. Justice Department doesn’t allege any wrongdoing by the influencers.
Following the indictment, YouTube removed several channels associated with Chen, including the Tenet Media channel.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
