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Purpose and status

• Bill C-256 was at first reading on November 7, 2025. It proposes changes to seven Acts concerning survivor pension benefits.
• Its stated purpose is to allow an eligible person’s survivor to receive benefits even if the couple married or began a conjugal relationship after the person turned 60 or retired.

Federal pension Acts

• Canadian Forces Superannuation Act: Repeals provisions including the option to reduce an annuity or allowance. It also sets child allowances at one-fifth of the basic allowance per child, or two-fifths if there is no entitled survivor, subject to overall limits.
• Judges Act: Repeals provisions including the option to reduce a judge’s annuity. It also revises the provision allowing certain annuity payments to be diverted to satisfy a financial support order.
• Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act: Revises survivor definitions for members, former members and prime ministers. A survivor includes a spouse married to the person immediately before death, or a person who establishes at least one year of conjugal cohabitation immediately before death. It repeals provisions including options to reduce allowances and makes related administrative changes.
• Public Service Superannuation Act and Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act: Repeal provisions including options to reduce annuities or allowances. They also set child allowances and overall limits using the same fractions described for the Canadian Forces Act.

Other pension plans

• Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985: Provides for a survivor to receive a variable benefit based on the balance remaining in a deceased former member’s defined-contribution account, subject to regulations. It also requires a joint and survivor pension in specified cases where a spouse or common-law partner exists when pension payments begin or at any time afterward, subject to another statutory provision.
• Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act: Provides for a survivor to receive variable payments from a deceased member’s account, subject to the regulations, the Income Tax Act and its regulations.

Transition and timing

• People who previously elected to reduce their annuity or allowance under specified provisions of the Canadian Forces, judges’, MPs’, public service or RCMP pension Acts would be deemed to have revoked that election when the relevant transitional provision comes into force.
• The provided text gives no cost estimate or specific coming-into-force date.