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Woman mistakenly declared dead by Service Canada for almost a year demands answers – CBC.ca

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At first, Teresa Shum and her husband, Mark, thought the situation was funny. The Markham, Ont., couple received a notice in February from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) that one of Mark’s tax credits was declined due to his marital status being changed to widower.

“We were really taken by surprise,” Shum said. “I was like ‘I’m not dead, I’m right here.’ “

The humour quickly dissipated when they realized the situation couldn’t be fixed immediately and Shum, who is retired, would be missing out on certain benefits. She says they filed an appeal with the CRA right away, and her status was corrected there within about a month after three phone interviews to prove she was, in fact, alive.

However, the CRA sent her a letter directing her to contact Service Canada, where they said the incorrect update that she had died in October 2021 had originated. 

So in April, Shum set out to have the Service Canada mistake corrected. It would take her another five months of calls and visits to have the record officially changed.

Service Canada told CBC News in an emailed statement earlier this month that it had removed the date of death on Shum’s account as of Aug. 31. It said this incident is not a regular occurrence. 

But the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling for better service from agencies like Service Canada, saying taxpayers like Shum have often complained of long wait times on the phone and in person. Meanwhile Shum is demanding answers about how this happened in the first place.

Long waits, passed from agent to agent

“How can anyone just change your data and tell you that you’re dead without a death certificate?” Shum wondered when she started reaching out to Service Canada. 

“Of course when you call [Service Canada], every call is a three hour wait,” she said. “No one knew what was going on so I decided to go into Service Canada.” 

Shum says when she visited a Service Canada office in Markham in April, she waited in line for hours before she was interviewed by an agent who told her to submit several forms to different departments of Service Canada including the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Social Insurance Number (SIN). 

“Then I was told it would take six to eight weeks to have the record fixed.”

But at the end of the eight weeks, the agent called Shum to inform her they had missed a form and she had to come back to Service Canada and go through the process all over again. This time, she recalled, the agent said there would be an “urgent” tag on her case so that she wouldn’t have to wait another six to eight weeks.

Every agent said the same thing, ‘Someone is taking care of it.’​​​​​– Teresa Shum, on her experience with Service Canada

When she was still unable to access her Service Canada account in July and hadn’t heard back from anybody, Shum tried calling again. She said she spoke to multiple agents throughout the month.

“Every agent said the same thing, ‘Someone is taking care of it,’ ” she said, noting that some of the agents said they had no idea what was going on with her case because they weren’t involved in previous conversations with agents.

Shum said during one of those calls, an agent told her Immigration Canada was taking care of her situation.

“I said ‘I’m a Canadian citizen.’ … She didn’t even check my account before she answered me.”

During this period of time, Shum, who is retired, was not able to apply for her CPP or Old Age Security Benefits.

She also reached out to her Member of Parliament for Markham—Stouffville, Helena Jaczek, who Shum said also tried to help her speed up the process.

Calls for better service: Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Jay Goldberg, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says they’ve seen many instances of poor service from the CRA and Service Canada including long wait times and difficulty getting answers from agents.

“These organizations need to remember we’re the taxpayers, we’re the ones in charge. They’re serving us, not the other way around,” Goldberg said.

He describes the mistake with Shum’s file as a “huge error” and says Service Canada should have been working around the clock to fix it.

Jay Goldberg, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, says it’s not appropriate that the taxpayer is expected to spend their time rectifying an error like a case of mistaken death. (Submitted by Jay Goldberg)

“To hear this example where we have this poor woman who’s been declared dead who’s not, waiting hours and hours to try to get some attention from Service Canada, it’s unacceptable.”

David Rotfleisch, a Toronto tax lawyer, did not work on Shum’s case specifically, but he said there should be one person designated within the system to help deal with incidents like this.

“The simple solution is to have someone dealing with this one particular issue, somebody co-ordinating at the federal level.”

Service Canada responds 

In a statement to CBC News, Service Canada said in December 2021, a date of death was added to Shum’s file indicating her as deceased as of Oct. 15, 2021. Service Canada said after Shum’s visit in April, it took steps to remove the date of death from the system but the process was not completed correctly.

“On August 31, 2022, Service Canada completed the process correctly and removed the date of death on her account,” the statement said, adding Shum can now access her account to apply for her CPP retirement benefits. 

Service Canada also stated that this instance was unusual, and it’s still investigating how the error occurred and why the change wasn’t processed correctly back in April.

A sign reading "Service Canada."
In a statement to CBC News, Service Canada said cases like Shum’s are unusual, and that it is still investigating how the error occurred and why the change wasn’t processed correctly the first time. (Christian Milette/Radio-Canada)

The CRA said the cause of the error can vary.

“It could be human error, a miscommunication from another government department, or, most often, a mistake made when a return is filed on behalf of a deceased person with an incorrect SIN number,” the tax agency said in a statement.

For its part, the CRA said it had already implemented a number of safeguards in the system prior to Shum’s case, to lower the likelihood of this error from occurring. Those include revising forms and procedures to make it less likely that a taxpayer can make an error in their tax filing, and collaborating with other government departments to validate records.

“While the issue still occurs, the prevalence is notably reducing,” the statement read.

Shum says she deserves to know why and how this happened. She feels like her security was breached, because her data was changed without her knowing about it.

“The information was sent to every single department, fast. But when I want to correct it, it takes me almost a year to do it,” she said.

“The inconvenience, the frustration, the time and the effort, it’s not good.”

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From transmission to symptoms, what to know about avian flu after B.C. case

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A B.C. teen has a suspected case of H5N1 avian flu — the first known human to acquire the virusin Canada.

The provincial government said on the weekend that B.C.’s chief veterinarian and public health teamsare still investigating the source of exposure, but that it’s “very likely” an animal or bird.

Human-to-human transmission is very rare, but as cases among animals rise, many experts are worried the virus could develop that ability.

The teen was being treated at BC Children’s Hospital on Saturday. The provincial health officer said there were no updates on the patient Monday.

“I’m very concerned, obviously, for the young person who was infected,” said Dr. Matthew Miller, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.

Miller, who is also the co-director of the Canadian Pandemic Preparedness Hub, said there have been several people infected with H5N1 in the U.S.,and almost all were livestock workers.

In an email to The Canadian Press on Monday afternoon, the Public Health Agency of Canada said “based on current evidence in Canada, the risk to the general public remains low at this time.”

WHAT IS H5N1?

H5N1 is a subtype of influenza A virus that has mainly affected birds, so it’s also called “bird flu” or “avian flu.” The H5N1 flu that has been circulating widely among birds and cattle this year is one of the avian flu strains known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) because it causes severe illness in birds, including poultry.

According to the World Health Organization, H5N1 has been circulating widely among wild birds and poultry for more than two decades. The WHO became increasingly concerned and called for more disease surveillance in Feb. 2023 after worldwide reports of the virus spilling over into mammals.

HOW COMMON IS INFECTION IN HUMANS?

H5N1 infections in humans are rare and “primarily acquired through direct contact with infected poultry or contaminated environments,” the WHO’s website says.

Prior to the teen in B.C., Canada had one human case of H5N1 in 2014 and it was “travel-related,” according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

As of Nov. 8, there have been 46 confirmed human cases of H5N1 in the U.S. this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. There is an ongoing outbreak among dairy cattle, “sporadic” outbreaks in poultry farms and “widespread” cases in wild birds, the CDC website says.

There has been no sign of human-to-human transmission in any of the U.S. cases.

But infectious disease and public health experts are worried that the more H5N1 spreads between different types of animals, the bigger the chance it can mutateand spread more easily between humans.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF H5N1?

Although H5N1 causes symptoms similar to seasonal flu, such as cough, fever, shortness of breath, headache, muscle pain, sore throat, runny nose and fatigue, the strain also has key features that can cause other symptoms.

Unlike seasonal flu, most of the people infected in the U.S. have had conjunctivitis, or “pink-eye,” said Miller.

One reason for that is likely that many have been dairy cattle workers.

“At these milking operations, it’s easy to get contamination on your hands and rub your eyes. We touch our face like all the time without even knowing it,” he said.

“Also, those operations can produce droplets or aerosols, both during milking and during cleaning that can get into the eye relatively easily.”

But the other reason for the conjunctivitis seen in H5N1 cases is that the strain binds to receptors in the eye, Miller said.

While seasonal flu binds to receptors in the upper respiratory tract, H5N1 also binds to receptors in the lower respiratory tract, he said.

“That’s a concern … because if the virus makes its way down there, those lower respiratory infections tend to be a lot more severe. They tend to lead to more severe outcomes, like pneumonias for example, that can cause respiratory distress,” Miller said.

WILL THE FLU VACCINE PROTECT AGAINST H5N1?

We don’t know “with any degree of certainty,” whether the seasonal flu vaccine could help prevent infection with H5N1, said Miller.

Although there’s no data yet, it’s quite possible that it could help prevent more severe disease once a person is infected, he said.

That’s because the seasonal flu vaccine contains a component of H1N1 virus, which “is relatively closely related to H5N1.”

“So the immunity that might help protect people against H5N1 is almost certainly conferred by either prior infection with or prior vaccination against H1N1 viruses that circulate in people,” Miller said.

HOW ELSE CAN I PROTECT MYSELF?

The Public Health Agency of Canada said as a general precaution, people shouldn’t handle live or dead wild birds or other wild animals, and keep pets away from sick or dead animals.

Those who work with animals or in animal-contaminated places should take personal protective measures, the agency said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2024.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.



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Wisconsin Supreme Court grapples with whether state’s 175-year-old abortion ban is valid

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A conservative prosecutor’s attorney struggled Monday to persuade the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reactivate the state’s 175-year-old abortion ban, drawing a tongue-lashing from two of the court’s liberal justices during oral arguments.

Sheboygan County’s Republican district attorney, Joel Urmanski, has asked the high court to overturn a Dane County judge’s ruling last year that invalidated the ban. A ruling isn’t expected for weeks but abortion advocates almost certainly will win the case given that liberal justices control the court. One of them, Janet Protasiewicz, remarked on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights.

Monday’s two-hour session amounted to little more than political theater. Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet told Urmanski’s attorney, Matthew Thome, that the ban was passed in 1849 by white men who held all the power and that he was ignoring everything that has happened since. Jill Karofsky, another liberal justice, pointed out that the ban provides no exceptions for rape or incest and that reactivation could result in doctors withholding medical care. She told Thome that he was essentially asking the court to sign a “death warrant” for women and children in Wisconsin.

“This is the world gone mad,” Karofsky said.

The ban stood until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never repealed the ban, however, and conservatives have argued the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe two years ago reactivated it.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2022. He argued that a 1985 Wisconsin law that prohibits abortion after a fetus reaches the point where it can survive outside the womb supersedes the ban. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.

Urmanski contends that the ban was never repealed and that it can co-exist with the 1985 law because that law didn’t legalize abortion at any point. Other modern-day abortion restrictions also don’t legalize the practice, he argues.

Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled last year that the ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. The ruling emboldened Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in Wisconsin after halting procedures after Roe was overturned.

Urmanski asked the state Supreme Court in February to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for a lower appellate decision.

Thome told the justices on Monday that he wasn’t arguing about the implications of reactivating the ban. He maintained that the legal theory that new laws implicitly repeal old ones is shaky. He also contended that the ban and the newer abortion restrictions can overlap just like laws establishing different penalties for the same crime. A ruling that the 1985 law effectively repealed the ban would be “anti-democratic,” Thome added.

“It’s a statute this Legislature has not repealed and you’re saying, no, you actually repealed it,” he said.

Dallet shot back that disregarding laws passed over the last 40 years to go back to 1849 would be undemocratic.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed a separate lawsuit in February asking the state Supreme Court to rule directly on whether a constitutional right to abortion exists in the state. The justices have agreed to take the case but haven’t scheduled oral arguments yet.

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This story has been updated to correct the Sheboygan County district attorney’s first name to Joel.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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When to catch the last supermoon of the year

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Better catch this week’s supermoon. It will be a while until the next one.

This will be the year’s fourth and final supermoon, looking bigger and brighter than usual as it comes within about 225,000 miles (361,867 kilometers) of Earth on Thursday. It won’t reach its full lunar phase until Friday.

The supermoon rises after the peak of the Taurid meteor shower and before the Leonids are most active.

Last month’s supermoon was 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) closer, making it the year’s closest. The series started in August.

In 2025, expect three supermoons beginning in October.

What makes a moon so super?

More a popular term than a scientific one, a supermoon occurs when a full lunar phase syncs up with an especially close swing around Earth. This usually happens only three or four times a year and consecutively, given the moon’s constantly shifting, oval-shaped orbit.

A supermoon obviously isn’t bigger, but it can appear that way, although scientists say the difference can be barely perceptible.

How do supermoons compare?

This year features a quartet of supermoons.

The one in August was 224,917 miles (361,970 kilometers) away. September’s was 222,131 miles (357,486 kilometers) away. A partial lunar eclipse also unfolded that night, visible in much of the Americas, Africa and Europe as Earth’s shadow fell on the moon, resembling a small bite.

October’s supermoon was the year’s closest at 222,055 miles (357,364 kilometers) from Earth. This month’s supermoon will make its closest approach on Thursday with the full lunar phase the next day.

What’s in it for me?

Scientists point out that only the keenest observers can discern the subtle differences. It’s easier to detect the change in brightness — a supermoon can be 30% brighter than average.

With the U.S. and other countries ramping up lunar exploration with landers and eventually astronauts, the moon beckons brighter than ever.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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