Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale - An unfair reduction in last-resort financial assistance

The Curateur Public contacted the Québec Ombudsman in order to get the Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale to recognize the caregiver/care receiver relationship a woman was in.

The Department considered this relationship to be a spousal one, which meant that the woman’s monthly social solidarity benefit was reduced to $150, rather than the $887 she would otherwise be entitled to.

The complaint to the Québec Ombudsman concerned:

• The reduction in assistance paid to the woman because of an inflexible interpretation of the notion of cohabitation.

The Québec Ombudsman’s investigation revealed that:

• the Curateur Public had applied repeatedly to get the Department to reconsider its decision;
• the woman’s physical and psychiatric condition made it impossible for her to live alone; her doctors had diagnosed a number of serious disorders;
• the woman and her cotenant were living together for mutual assistance. Life as a couple was not part of their plans;
• the two had been living together for over four years, and, without this caregiver/care receiver relationship, the woman would have had to be institutionalized;
• the man helping the woman had indicated that he would be unable to continue sharing tenancy if these financial difficulties lasted.
  In light of the Ombudsman’s intervention, the Department agreed to reconsider its original decision. The woman resumed receiving the full benefits she was entitled to and her three preceding years of benefits were also retroactively readjusted.