CPP-D entitlement period

1

Can someone help me understand the CPP-D entitlement period?

I have been on and off LTD for years and I’m worried this is impacting my eligibility for CPP-D. This is my timeline:

2002 - 2005 - full-time work
2005-2007 - maternity leave + period of unemployment while at home with baby
2007-2008 - part- time employment
2008-2009 - maternity leave
2009 - 2019 full time employment
Feb 2019 - Sept 2020 - STD followed by LTD
Sept 2020 - Aug 2021 - full time employment
Aug 2021 - Nov 2021 - STD
Nov 2021 - July 2022 - full-time employment
July 2022 - present - STD followed by LTD with no expectation to return to work

Looking at eligibility, I’m concerned I won’t qualify for CPP-D because of the repeated periods of disability since 2019. I don’t think I contributed to CPP during those disabilities, or am I wrong? I keep seeing that you need to have contributed to CPP in 4 of the last 6 years. Am I going to be punished for repeatedly attempting to return to work (and then inevitably ending up back on disability)?

Does anyone know if those disability absences will make me ineligible?

2

@David_Brannen has an excellent write-up on this site, which I will link below. But I will say, you may qualify under the “late applicant provision”. Basically, you start counting the 4 out of 6 years from the time you became disabled. Here, hopefully this helps. Which years have you contributed to the CPP?

3

You can download a list of your CPP contributions on the my service canada website.

4

I believe CPP contributions encompass calendar years (Jan to Dec). So even though you’ve described your period of working as 1 year, for example, because it was from Sept to Sept, it would actually mean 2 years of contributions.

Unfortunately, this way of calculating does drag down the way Service Canada will calculate your monthly payments since your overall income for each calendar year will look lower because of the time away from disability.