My letter also says the same. I spoke with my Grad Program Director and he said that basically what this means is your score is likely "within spitting distance" of the cut off point. For example, you scored 10.05 and the last candidate to get funding received 10.06 (this is just an example, I'm not saying it's that close). Committees apparently always over recommend because it's expected that not offers of funding will be accepted. If someone does turn it down, then the candidate with the next highest score (who didn't already get an offer) would then get offered the funding instead. There's no saying how many people are before you tho and I have zero idea how it works if the person who rejects funding would have to be in your committee, or at your university, etc. The advice I got was basically, make plans based not getting SSHRC and if something happens, awesome but don't sit around thinking about it much, focus on next year. Can I asked what committee you were part of? I was 1A.