Enns – Federal Court of Appeal finds that a widow was not a spouse of her deceased husband

After the death of her husband, the taxpayer received the proceeds of his RRSP as the designated beneficiary thereof, and transferred those proceeds to her locked-in retirement account. Before allowing her appeal, from an assessment under s. 160(1)(a), on the basis that she was not his “spouse” on her receipt of the RRSP assets, Webb JA indicated:

• “Since the ordinary meaning of ‘spouse’ is a person who is married to another individual and since marriage ends on death, this would lead to the conclusion that when a marriage ends as a result of the death of one of the individuals, the survivor ceases to be the ‘spouse’ of the deceased.”
• When it added “common-law partner” to the Act in 2000, Parliament also changed all of the references to “spouse” to “spouse or common-law partner” so that it “is self-evident that Parliament intended the Act to apply equally to couples, whether they were married or in a common-law partnership”.
• It therefore was relevant that the opening part of the definition of “common-law partner” contemplates two individuals who are cohabiting in a conjugal relationship, and that “[t]wo individuals would not be cohabiting in a conjugal relationship following the death of one of them”.
• Although the “common-law partner” definition generally deemed those who have been cohabiting to thereafter be common-law partners, and a literal application of this provision would deem them to continue as such even after one had died, this “could not have been the intended result”.

Neal Armstrong. Summary of Enns v. Canada, 2025 FCA 14 under s. 160(1)(a).