Limits on CPP survivor benefits for same-sex couples unconstitutional.

Abstract

On 19 December 2003, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared the federal government's Canada Pension Plan (CPP) survivor benefits regime as it applied to same-sex couples unconstitutional. Under the law, survivors in same-sex relationships could not receive benefits if their partner had died prior to 1 January 1998, while no similar restriction was imposed on opposite sex-relationship survivors. In Hislop v Canada, Justice Macdonald found this cut-off date to be unconstitutional because it denied gay and lesbian survivors equality of the law.