Mixed Supreme Court ruling on same-sex survivor benefits

1998 cut-off declared discriminatory but survivors of gay couples are not entitled to greater benefits than survivors of opposite-sex couples

Ottawa (2 March 2007) - The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Parliament discriminated against same-sex couples by establishing 1998 a cut-off year when it extended Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits to surviving partners in same-sex relationships.

The cut-off year was decreed in 2000 when Parliament passed legislation broadening survivor benefits to include gay couples. To extend the date back further would cost too much money, the government said at the time.

The court found that the decision was discriminatory because it violated equality provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Instead, the year Parliament should have used was 1985, the year the Charter's equality provisions came into force for all Canadians, it ruled.

However, the court rejected a claim in the class-action suit for the retroactive payment of all unpaid benefits. If this were done, it would discriminate the other way against opposite-sex couples, the court decided.

Rather, it ruled that surviving partners in same-sex unions are untitled to the same 12 months of benefits that opposite-sex couples are entitled to receive.

The late George Hislop, a gay rights crusader in Toronto, initiated the case when he applied for CPP survivor benefits after his partner of 28 years, Ron Shearer, died in 1986. Hislop died in 2005 at the age of 78. The case continued under his name and four other co-claimants. NUPGE