Partner George Hislop
Queer Places:
Gerorge Hislop Park, 20 Isabella St, Toronto, ON M4Y 1N1, Canada
Ronald Shearer (1922 - April 15, 1986) was an art director for a lighting company. He met his partner, George Hislop in 1958 and they 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.
In 1958, while riding the Hanlan's Point ferry George felt a hand on his ass. That's how George met Ron Shearer, the love of his life. Like George, Ronnie was handsome, funny and articulate. Ronnie was a great counterpoint to George. Ronnie cared about things like grooming, housekeeping and cooking and spent a great deal of his time straightening George's tie or brushing crumbs off his clothes. While Ronnie cooked elaborate, wonderful meals, George, when left to his own devices, liked to eat out. (George once admitted that he had only used his microwave twice, both times to make popcorn.) While George was always publicly in search of the latest new gloryhole, Ronnie kept his own sexual escapades to himself. Ron's died unexpectedly 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.
Hislop received his first benefit check in August 2005. He welcomed the court's decision, noting that it was particularly empowering to people who may have hesitated to seek benefits for fear of homophobic reaction. "There were some people reluctant to come forward because if they lived in a small community it meant in many ways coming out of the closet, but now more and more feel free to come forward and make their claim," he stated. For himself, he was "thinking of taking a little holiday, perhaps a short cruise in the winter into warmer weather." Sadly, it did not happen. Hislop died of cancer on October 8, 2005, less than three months after Canada became the fourth country to recognize same-sex marriages.
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