Change to Public Service Healthcare Plan (PSHCP) provider, SunLife to Canada Life, transition issues
President of the Treasury Board fails to hold Canada Life to account
November 1, 2023
Ottawa, ON – Stephanie Kusie, Conservative Member of Parliament for Calgary Midnapore and Shadow Minister for the Treasury Board, released the following statement regarding the continued failures around the transition of the Public Service Health Care Plan to Canada Life.
“There is now another example of the Liberal government making statements in a time of crisis, but with very few results. The transition of the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP) from Sun Life to Canada Life on July 1st, 2023 has been fraught with problems.
“Canada Life had 18 months to prepare for the transition, and yet once the transition happened, call centres were overwhelmed, claims were denied without explanation, and those that were processed took weeks.
“It has now been four months, and the administration of the PSHCP is still failing far too many members.
“Despite the President of the Treasury Board, Anita Anand, meeting with Canada Life in August about the complaints and promising they would be addressed, members are still reporting excessive wait times for calls and claim processing.
“Plan members should not have to wait months to have claims processed and should have changes in their coverage properly explained to them by Canada Life.
“The Minister should have been more involved in the administration of this plan to hold Canada Life to account for their inability to facilitate their mandate. We are counting on the Minister to ensure that Canada Life is held to deliver services to Canadians who have dedicated their lives in service to Canada.”
You can contact the Canada Life Member contact centre at 1-855-415-4414, or Canada Life: Insurance, Investments, & Retirement.
July 17, 2023
As the result of a competitive procurement process that began in 2018, Canada Life was awarded the contract to administer the PSHCP and began processing PSHCP claims on July 1, 2023.
The transition of the largest health care plan in Canada from Sun Life to Canada Life is a big undertaking, affecting 1.7 million federal public service employees, federal retirees and their eligible dependants. Canada Life began asking plan members to complete their positive enrolment in March 2023 to help ensure as smooth a transition as possible. As of end of day June 30, 94% of employees and 75% of retired plan members had completed positive enrolment.
The Government of Canada is working with Canada Life to transition the PSHCP as smoothly as possible. Canada Life is taking immediate steps to address the high volume of calls being received, including increasing the number of call centre agents and we thank members for their patience as Canada Life is working to ensure wait times to reach a Canada Life representative by phone are reasonable.