Canada To Pay Same-Sex Survivor Pensions While Court Fight Continues

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/07/071405canPension.htm

The Canadian government has told 500 aging gays and lesbians it will begin paying widowed same-sex partners survivor benefits even though it is fighting their claims in court.

In 2000 the federal government passed legislation recognizing same-sex relationships under the Canada Pension Plan and made it retroactive to Jan. 1, 1998.

But, gays argued it should have been backdated to April 1985, when gays and lesbians were granted equality under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and began a class action suit to recover the unpaid benefits due an estimated 1,500 survivors, many of whom became widowed at the height of the AIDS crisis.


Canada is just too civilized--the US government would cut these people off without a penny while fighting them in court

[applegrove]

1. But only as far back to 1985 or 1980 or something. As the comedian

said "Canada will pay gay benefits as far back as 198? - when apparently, gayness was invented!".