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TORONTO, November 26, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homosexuals whose same-sex partners have died before 1998 were, until Friday, denied retroactive Canada Pension Plan disbursements. The Ontario Court of Appeals ruled that denying the payments is unconstitutional.  In 2001, homosexual activists sued the federal government for $400-million, seeking what they said were outstanding survivor benefits. A number of homosexual couples demanded that benefits should be retroactive to 1985, rather than the original ruling that granted retroactive payments to surviving members of same-sex partnerships for partners who had died after January 1, 1998.

The Ontario Superior Court ruled in December that the federal government had to make the retroactive payments to 1985. The federal government appealed the ruling; the arguments were heard before the appellate court in June.  Back-payments are estimated to be as high as $80 million.

“Excluding many of those who were intended to be included is not rationally connected to the objective of the law, which is to end the discriminatory exclusion of same-sex partners from CPP benefits,” the activist court claimed in its ruling.

Read prior LifeSiteNews.com coverage:  Federal Lawsuit Challenges Retroactive Payments of Pension Benefits to Same-Sex Couples   https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jun/04061005.html   tv