It may seem strange but there’s a loophole in Canadian law that allows murderers of a spouse to collect “survivor benefits”.
When a spouse dies, the surviving husband or wife receives payments based on the dead spouse’s Canada Pension Plan (CPP) or Old Age Security (OAS) benefits.
Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Dave Van Kesteren represents the federal riding of Chatham-Kent-Essex in Ontario.
He says it unjust that someone convicted of first or second-degree murder of their spouse still automatically collect money based on the pension or security benefits of the dead spouse.
He introduced a private members bill in the House of Commons this week that would disqualify convicted spousal killers from collecting the CPP and OAS survivor’s benefits.
While he couldn’t name any specific case where this is occurring, he suggested that there were about 30 cases a year that would be affected by the changes he proposes.
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