When speaking of LGBTQ+ rights, most tend to conjure up parades, protests, or maybe the victories of marriage equality. Rarely, if ever, do they think of the tax return. And yet, there it sits, year after year, line after line, our nation’s most persistent civic ritual. In a country where taxes touch nearly every aspect of life, it is no exaggeration to say that the tax system tells a story about who belongs, and on what terms.
Tax law, in its quiet, bureaucratic way, has long been a mirror of social values. It recognizes relationships, rewards some family structures, and withholds benefits from others. For much of its history, the Canadian Income Tax Act[1] offered its benefits with a wink and a nod to one kind of household: the heterosexual, married couple, ideally with children and a mortgage.
But over the decades the tax system opened its ledgers to LGBTQ+ Canadians. This is the story of how that happened.