A A

On Aug. 10, Joe Gallant woke up dead.

Which, as might be expected, came as a great surprise to the still very much alive Summerside resident.

But there it was, a letter sitting on his kitchen table from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA); sent to his address, with his social insurance number (SIN) and addressed to “the estate of the late Joseph S. Gallant.”

He was – perplexed.

“I had a bit of a panic attack,” recalled Gallant.

The document was actually a bill from CRA, requesting repayment of his GST rebate and family allowance, both of which he received and cashed in July. But according to the CRA’s system, he’d been declared dead in June so he wasn’t entitled to the payments.

Gallant contacted CRA, which queued the case for a priority investigation and told him to call back in four weeks to check on the file.

This posed problems for Gallant as he has a pre-paid trip to Boston scheduled for the end of this month. He is also planning on going to Spain in September.

“I’m not allowed to leave the country because when they run my passport it’s going to show I’m deceased, and it’s going to look like I stole my own identity.”

Gallant started making phone calls to anyone he thought might be able to help him, including Egmont MP Bobby Morrissey’s office, with whom he got a meeting.

A few days after that meeting he got a phone call from Morrissey’s office, which told him he had been successfully resurrected in the eyes of CRA, and that Vital Statistics, the government agency that keeps track of births, marriages, deaths and name changes, should also be updated within short order.

However, Gallant has not had any further follow up from CRA and is still nervous about leaving Canada for his Boston trip. He’s hoping to be in contact soon to settle the situation for good.

CRA can’t speak to individual investigations due to privacy concerns, but it did provide some general information in a statement to the Journal Pioneer regarding situations like this one.

It said that in the calendar years 2016 and 2017 it had a death reporting error rate of 0.06 per cent of total reported deaths. It did not provide the actual number of cases.

“The root cause of the error can vary; however, the majority of these errors are made when a return is filed on behalf of a deceased person and the incorrect SIN is provided. For example, the SIN of the surviving spouse rather than the SIN of the deceased spouse (is given), which then causes the surviving spouse to be coded deceased in CRA systems,” it said.

“The CRA continues to validate and analyze these errors and implement changes as necessary.”

Colin.MacLean@JournalPioneer.com

@JournalPMacLean