While the Supreme Court said same-sex partners widowed before January 1, 1998,
were wrongly denied Canada Pension Plan survivor benefits for years, it limited
retroactive compensation to one year.
The judges ruled 7-0 against extending those payments back to 1985 when
equality rights took effect under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Instead, the judgment makes any same-sex partner widowed after 1985 eligible
for CPP survivor benefits averaging about $500 a month, plus 12-months'
arrears.
That's far short of the compensation sought by about 1,500 claimants or their
estates who fought a class-action battle.
The high court essentially said Ottawa, unless it has acted in bad faith, can't
be asked to reach far back in time to legally apply a modern-day understanding
of rights.
"Achieving an appropriate balance between fairness to individual litigants and
respecting the legislative role of Parliament may mean that charter remedies
will be directed more toward government action in the future and less toward
the correction of past wrongs," says the judgment.
The high court struck down part of a law passed in 2000 that granted CPP
survivor benefits only to gay partners widowed after Jan. 1, 1998, calling it
an unjust breach of equality rights. However, the ruling gives the federal
government credit for what it calls a "good-faith" effort to update its laws.
The judgment is a mixed victory for claimants who fought for compensation back
to 1985 after being excluded until 2000. They now stand to receive about
$18,000 to $30,000 each.
For Albert McNutt, 56, it was a bittersweet victory. His partner, Gary Pask,
died in 1993. McNutt was denied survivor benefits under CPP at the time because
gay couples weren't legally recognized.
That changed in 2000 after Parliament was forced to update a raft of laws
following a high court ruling the year before. It declared it unconstitutional
to bar gay couples from collecting family benefits.
"I wouldn't say it's totally 100 per cent fair," McNutt, who travelled from
Truro, N.S., to be at the Supreme Court, said of the judgment. "But I'm happy
with taking what we have. This is the last step of the journey for me, anyway."
In Quebec, which is not affected by yesterday's ruling because it runs its own
parallel pension plan, gay survivors got much more.
The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled on a similar case in 2002, saying recognition
of same-sex spouses should extend back to 1982.
