Gay couples win retroactive CPP benefits | Globe and Mail

[Ediacara]

Gay couples win retroactive CPP benefits
Canadian Press

Toronto — An Ontario court ruled Friday that the federal government has discriminated against same-sex couples by denying pension benefits to survivors whose partners died before 1998.

Such benefits will now be retroactive to April 17, 1985, when equality guarantees were included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The period from 1985 to 1998 is significant because of the devastating effects of AIDS on the gay community, lead counsel Douglas Elliott said in court hearings in the fall.

The Crown had contended that providing benefits retroactive to Jan. 1, 1998, was generous, and in step with the evolving legal status of same-sex relationships.

But on Friday, Justice Ellen Macdonald ruled against the federal government.

“I can find nothing generous in codifying a mechanism for discrimination that has been in existence since at least the advent of the charter,” Judge Macdonald said.

More at the Globe and Mail