SAME-SEX COUPLES WIN CANADIAN PENSION FIGHT: From the Globe and Mail

The federal government violated the rights of gays and lesbians by depriving them of more than $100-million in survivor pension benefits, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

The court said that limitations that denied benefits to those whose partners died before 1998, and paid benefits only for the period after July, 2000, were arbitrary and harmed the survivors both emotionally and financially. Moreover, they were rooted in a mistaken belief that notions about same-sex equality came into being only in recent years, the judges said.

"The impairment of the rights of same-sex survivors cannot be said to be minimal," a 3-0 majority ruled. "The denial of equal access to such a fundamental social institution constituted a complete non-recognition of these same-sex survivors as full members of Canadian society." ...

Its ruling was another triumph for a group with a record of success since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into being in 1982.

"It's just too bad we have to keep fighting through the courts," said R. Douglas Elliott, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

Mr. Elliott said in an interview that at least 1,500 surviving spouses will benefit from the ruling, a number that would have been considerably higher had AIDS not killed so many couples.

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