Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 11th, 2006

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I said I disagree, which I don't think is a problem for you. I'm asking if you would feel more comfortable with the Conservative viewpoint.

[Dr. Charles McVety]

No. We agree with human rights, and what we're arguing for is equality, not that all are equal but some are more equal than others. We are not arguing against the courts. We're not arguing against a process. That's why we have a political process whereby we stand up and fight for the rights of people. But we must be equal in this application, and that's what this court challenges program is not: equal.

It's ironic that something that proposes to act for people fighting for rights is so discriminatory at its core, and that's why we are against it.

[Brian Rushfeldt]

I think one of the things you mentioned was individual rights. Do we talk group rights, collective rights? If we get down to individual rights, then I honestly believe that there must be a much better way of resolving individual rights issues than by having a federal court challenges program funded by tax dollars and administered by a particular group of people.

I don't have the perfect solution to that, but certainly looking at how the court challenges program has worked since it was instituted, I would suggest that it is not a proper and right way to resolve such challenges as your daughter's trying to get a teacher to teach. Should that have to end up before a court challenges program funded by taxpayers? I don't believe so. I believe there have to be a lot better ways of doing it than that, and in fact I don't think we should be having a body stuck out there somewhere, whether it's at arm's length or has no connection, using tax dollars to take things like this to courts.

[John Carpay]

Regarding your question, would we feel better or have a better ear.... I don't understand your question, but I will comment on some of the...because it sounds as though you're asking us which way we vote in the federal election, which really—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

No, no. I think I might have to clarify. Certainly from my Conservative colleagues, I hear a viewpoint that says that the exercise of creating access to specific rights for people who would be considered disadvantaged somehow comes at the expense of the majority. That, I think it would be fair to say, is a view that the New Democratic Party does not hold. And generally what I'm hearing before me—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We have to speed up.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm asking if you believe that with this viewpoint, which, as Ms. Landolt would say, has not had much support politically, you feel that you are better heard by the present government. I don't think it's how you vote; I'm asking whether you feel that this is a government that's listening to your point of view. I think it's fairly straightforward.

[John Carpay]

I'm here today. I was invited to testify about whether or not the court challenges program should be funded, and I've given reasons why it should not be. I think your question falls outside of why I've been invited here today.

Regarding some of your examples on francophone minority rights and so on, Chief Mountain in British Columbia is a disadvantaged individual, and he was denied funding because he was told, the court challenges program said, he did not fit their vision of equality. The point is that there are different visions of equality; there are different visions of how we can best accommodate minority rights. I think it's far better if it's done without recourse to the courts, but even if it is done with recourse to the courts, there are different perspectives on exactly how courts should decide on minority rights issues. Even among judges, a lot of the Supreme Court of Canada decisions are split. They're split 5:4, 3:6, 8:1, what have you. So there are differing opinions.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You're not saying the same thing you said in your presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We have to end the questioning here, Mr. Angus, right now. You've had an extensive time.

Ms. Boucher.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You're A-1 in my books.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Go ahead.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good afternoon. Thank you for appearing before us today.

Our committee is trying to find solutions. I read your brief on the Court Challenges Program. You say that you think it is discriminatory for the various reasons you set out in your paper.

What solutions would you suggest to our committee, Mr. Carpay, that would help us standardize the principle of equality? What would be the best way of proceeding?

Everyone knows that the Court Challenges Program has been set aside, but if some day one government or another wanted to establish a particular system, how should it go about it in order to standardize the issue of equality, so that all those with issues to raise have an equal opportunity to do so?

[John Carpay]

That would be very difficult. One of the main problems with the Court Challenges Program was that it provided money to defend a single viewpoint, a single perspective. However, in many cases there are more than simply one or two points of view, there are several, particularly when the dispute involves education, the definition of marriage or the health care system. In the area of health care, I could mention the decision in the Chaouli case, which was quite complicated.

In my opinion, it is impossible to develop a government program that would provide funding equitably to defend various points of view. In addition, in each case, a decision would have to be made as to whether or not taxpayers' money would be provided to defend two, three or four different points of view and to how many people the money would be given.

It cannot be done. The government's decision to cut off the funding for this program was the best solution, because the program was intrinsically unfair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to follow up on something Mr. Angus articulated, he made the statement that the difference between him and perhaps members of the Conservative Party was that the Conservative Party did not believe in providing access to the disadvantaged if that access excluded the majority. I believe that was the gist of what he said. I don't believe that's the argument I've heard today, and I don't think it's the argument I've heard elsewhere regarding the court challenges program. As I understand it, the concern is that if we're going to provide access to the courts to the disadvantaged, it should be with equality of access to all the disadvantaged.

My colleague just asked the question to Mr. Carpay, is there something that can be done to improve that? Let me ask each one of you a twofold question. Is it your position that there should be exclusion of access to the courts by the disadvantaged in our community? If not, are you supportive of developing other means, whether through a CCP program or some other means, of ensuring that the voices of the disadvantaged are heard and that the disadvantaged have equal access to the court system?

[Gwendolyn Landolt]

I would say the same thing we've had to.... We've had to dig into our own pockets. Because we have support from other people across the country, we've had to pay for it. If you have support from grassroots people, why can't you go to court? It's the same thing with Mr. Carpay on the aboriginal issue. They raised the money from the grassroots.

Why do we have to have government handouts when there isn't really the support of the public? And if you have the support of the public, you can go to court, as we've done for over 12 interventions, simply because we've asked our members for the money and they've produced it and we've done it—at great cost to us, but we've done it. Why can't other groups do it?

Mr. Angus, why can't people who are deaf do it? Why don't they access...? People with children with autism have gone to court. Why do we have to have the taxpayers handing out money to people?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Carpay, Mr. McVety, and also Mr. Rushfeldt, if you could answer that quickly—

[John Carpay]

A very short answer is that I trust in the wisdom of Canadians and I trust in the compassion of Canadians to contribute to worthwhile court cases. Canadians know justice when they see it. What the court challenges program is—or hopefully was—is an affront, a statement of disbelief and distrust in the wisdom and compassion of Canadians to give voluntarily to a just cause.

[Dr. Charles McVety]

A colleague of my grandmother, Nellie McClung, fought for equality in this country of Canada in the persons case, for the equality of women to vote, for the equality for women to be persons, and she did it without a court challenges program. She did it without going to the Supreme Court. She did it by marching in the streets and appealing for equality to the members of this Parliament in this building. That is the level playing field; that is why this building exists. If we exercise that, then we have equality, instead of this selective equality put forward by an incestuous board deciding to give its own colleagues funding for their own pet projects.

[Brian Rushfeldt]

I would argue that there are no people excluded from accessing the courts right now. As we've heard from other witnesses, money can be raised. So I don't think tax money is the solution to it. There is no exclusion to anybody going to court for any reason at this stage, in my argument.

We have to at least debate the potential of moving away from using the courts to resolve the very things that we elect folks like you to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When the motion was put forward from the government to expand the list of people to hear from, I supported it. I believe it is worthwhile to listen to people who have different points of view. Because of that and similar things I've heard today and last Wednesday, I've given you notice, Mr. Chairman, that it would be very important for us to also hear from the court challenges program representatives themselves.

There have been many things said here today, questions asked, and some innuendo put on the table, so I'd like to hear from them. I'm giving notice that the motion is there so people are aware of it. If we're going to look into it, as we have with the presentations today, we should be willing to hear from them as well.

I am going to be talking about language rights. Mr. Angus raised the issue earlier, but I didn't hear the panellists' comments.

I am part of a linguistic minority in this country: I am a francophone who lives in Ontario. That has nothing to do with the Government of Canada or the fact that I am a member of Parliament. The Constitution recognizes linguistic rights, the right to education in one's mother tongue throughout the country, when numbers warrant, although it has happened that this right does not exist even where numbers do warrant, if we refer to section 133 of the Constitution Act.

Does your argument about equality also apply to the linguistic rights of the official language minorities in this country?

[John Carpay]

Yes. Those who want to take a case to the courts can ask others to support them voluntarily. I trust Canadians: they will give of their time voluntarily to defend a cause they feel is just.

I do understand your view, because I too am part of a linguistic minority: I was born in the Netherlands, and my mother tongue is Dutch. I have to fight much more than francophones do to teach my son Dutch. I am responsible—

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

With all due respect, Dutch is not one of this country's two official languages.