A Quebec woman got injured on the job. Then the government took away her disability pay

Update: On Sept. 13, Marla Vineberg received a call from the government saying her disability pension would be reinstated.

A Montreal woman says the Quebec government has left her in financial limbo by suspending her disability pension following a workplace injury.

Marla Vineberg's monthly disability benefit was suspended in July after she received an indemnity from Quebec's workplace health and safety board (CNESST) for her on-the-job injury.

Vineberg has no idea when or if her disability benefit will be reinstated. 

"I don't see the connection, so I feel like I'm being penalized for getting a concussion on the job," Vineberg told CBC in an interview.

"It's very unfair. It discriminates against people like me with disabilities. It's as if we're not allowed to get injured," Vineberg said.

Vineberg has multiple sclerosis. She's been receiving a disability pension from Retraite Québec, the government agency that administers the province's pension plan, since 2005. 

She gets about $1,100 a month.

Under the rules of the plan, Vineberg is allowed to work part time to supplement her income and is permitted to earn up to $19,000 a year on top of her disability pension..

If she's injured on the job and receives compensation from the CNESST, Vineberg's disability pension is automatically suspended for the period she receives compensation, but it's supposed to be reinstated afterward.

In her case, that didn't happen.

Hit by flying football

In August 2021, Vineberg started working as a lunch monitor at an elementary school in her neighbourhood in the suburb of Côte Saint-Luc.

Vineberg was hit in the back of the head while supervising children playing last March.

"Some of the children were playing with a football indoors. They were throwing the football as I was looking the other way, watching some other children. I felt the ball hit me in the back of the head," Vineberg said.

"I went the next day to the ER, and then I was diagnosed with a mild concussion."

Since the injury happened on the job, and she needed to take some time off, Vineberg filed a claim with the CNESST.

Her claim was approved. Vineberg took about a month off work and was eventually paid an indemnity of about $2,500.  Once she was feeling better, the CNESST closed her file.

Retraite Québec informed her that her disability payments would be suspended while she was receiving payments from the CNESST but would resume thereafter. She received her disability pension in June.

At the beginning of August, Vineberg got a call from Retraite Québec saying her file was under investigation, and her benefits were being indefinitely suspended. On top of that, she was asked to repay her June benefit.

"They said they wanted to verify the income that I made last year to make sure I didn't make too much," Vineberg said.

She said even with her CNESST indemnity, she never exceeded the amount to which she was entitled and doesn't understand why she's being investigated.

"I never earned more than I was supposed to. I followed all the rules," she said.

Retraite Québec later sent her a letter.

"We rejected the application for disability benefits that you filed because you were entitled to an unreduced income replacement indemnity from the CNESST," the letter said.

The letter asked Vineberg to reapply for the same disability pension she's been receiving since 2005.

"You may therefore be entitled to a disability pension provided we deem you to be disabled," the letter said.

Stress and strain

Vineberg said she was told this process may take up to five months. It's possible her benefits may be reinstated and she may receive retroactive payments, she said, but in the meantime, she's left hanging.

"I just have to wait for the answer, and there could be also a chance that they may decide not to give me back my pension at all, which is very stressful," she said.

She said that stress makes her multiple sclerosis symptoms worse.

"The whole point of going back to work part time was just to supplement my disability income to help my family," said Vineberg, a mother of three.

"With the rising cost of everything, it's very expensive, especially with school starting," she said. "Everyone is just trying to get by." 

Vineberg said her disability payments are an important part of the family income, and she and her husband have been forced to sell their second vehicle in order to pay rent and bills.

"By the end of September, I don't know what we're going to do," she said.

Delay just 5 weeks, says Retraite Québec

Frédéric Lizotte, a spokesperson for Retraite Québec, told CBC in an email he couldn't comment on Vineberg's specific case.

However, it appears proper procedure was followed, he said — although Vineberg may have been misinformed about how long it could take to reinstate her pension.

"When a beneficiary of the QPP disability pension begins to receive an indemnity from the CNESST, the disability pension is stopped," Lizotte said.

"Subsequently, as soon as Retraite Québec is informed by the CNESST that the replacement indemnity is ending, it contacts the person inviting him to complete a new application to restore the QPP disability pension."

But he said the five-month delay only applies to new applications.

"In the case of reinstatement of a disability pension from the QPP, the processing is prioritized, and the delay is approximately five weeks following receipt of the request," Lizotte said.

Vineberg said it's been more than five weeks since she reapplied for her pension and that she hasn't received any payments since June. 

Last week she got a letter from Retraite Québec that included forms for her employer to fill out showing how much she earned in 2021 and 2022.

"They want more information about the kind of work I'm doing and how much I'm earning," Vineberg said.

"I'm being investigated like a criminal," she said.