Ron Shearer, an art director for a lighting company, and his partner, George Hislop (1928 - living), met in 1958 and lived together in Toronto. They fell in love and became a couple. They established a home together, and ran a business together. They shared their lives, cared for each other, and held themselves out to the world as a couple, until Ron's unexpected death from a stroke after heart surgery for an heart bypass.

At that time, Hislop learned he was ineligible for survivor benefits because he and Shearer were of the same sex. In July 2000, the CPP was amended to provide pension benefits to same sex survivors but only if their deceased partners died on or after January 1, 1998.

Hislop and others, representing same sex survivors of partners who died before January 1, 1998, sued Canada, contending that they had been unlawfully denied survivor benefits.

On December 19, 2003, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the denial of benefits to same sex survivors was as unconstitutional before January 1, 1998 as it was on and after that date. It therefore ordered Canada to pay retroactive survivor benefits, plus interest, to representatives of the plaintiff class.