Friday, August 2, 2002

A story released today by the Canadian Press reports that the British Columbia Supreme Court will allow a $380-million class action lawsuit against the federal government by gays and lesbians for survivor benefits under the Canada Pension Plan.

Justice Marion Allan found a class action case was appropriate to determine the issues raised by Eric Brogaard and Gail Meredith in their lawsuit against the Attorney General of Canada.

"In the absence of a class proceeding, there could be a proliferation of individual actions seeking virtually identical relief," Allan wrote in her decision.

The lawsuit alleges that the federal government discriminates because while it collects CPP premiums from all Canadians, it denies survivor pensions to gays and lesbians whose partners died prior to Jan. 1, 1998.

The lawsuit seeks benefits for all applicable gay and lesbian survivors in B.C. retroactive to April 17, 1985, the day equality guarantees were enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A similar lawsuit has been launched in Ontario, covering all gays and lesbians in other provinces except Quebec, which has its own pension plan. There has been no decision on whether the Ontario case can proceed as a class-action lawsuit.

Sharon Matthews, one of the lawyers in the B.C. case, said the certification of the class-action lawsuit is the first big step.

"By binding together, the class members have an economical base to pursue what we expect will be very hard-fought litigation," said Matthews.

Same-sex couples were excluded from survivor benefits until a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in May 1999 that struck down Ontario's definition of spouse referring purely to heterosexual couples as unconstitutional. The decision prompted revisions to federal and provincial laws across the country, including amendments to the federal Pension Act and the Income Tax Act.

No date has been set for the B.C. case to proceed.

The Ontario court case will be heard in November.