Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 13th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for coming today, as well.

I'll start with Mr. Rollason. You mentioned in your brief that you had some support from the court challenges program, but that the federal government, which was actually fighting to take away rights that you should have readily been accorded, had a full team of lawyers. Could you give me any estimate of what taxpayers paid to fund the federal government's actually not trying to support the rights you had a right to?

[Kevin Rollason]

I can only guesstimate, as a parent. But in the courtroom they had two federal government lawyers at the table. They had an assistant. They had somebody sitting in the audience as well. The team had flown from Ottawa. This was a Winnipeg-based lawyer. There were x number of court days. We were in court for two days. And who knows how much money they spent to get to that point. It would have been in the tens of thousands of dollars, at least, for that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

So the federal government paid tens of thousands of dollars to try to stop you and Mary--your family--from having rights that normally should have been accorded to you.

In a real sense, this debate isn't about subsidizing people through the court challenges program; it's about trying to have a level playing field so that the huge subsidies the federal government already applies--the federal government in this case being Conservative--to try to squash rights are actually counter-balanced by some ability of individuals, of Canadians, to fight back.

[Kevin Rollason]

Yes. As I said, they had the resources that stayed with them. We were only individual parents who were trying to get on an equal footing.

As I said, I did challenge it before the tribunal, the board of review. For one thing, they couldn't hear constitutional issues. For another thing--yes, I got squashed, to put it bluntly. The vast majority of parents across the land would not be able to come up with the constitutional challenge. We believe--we're middle-class people--that there are an awful lot of people with children with disabilities and adults with disabilities who are nowhere near the poverty line. They're lower than we are. Think of them. If they had to come forward as we are doing to mount a challenge, there'd be absolutely no way.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

You could not have done it without the court challenges program. So with the elimination of this program in a few months, other parents in similar situations will simply have to bow to the government, no matter how mean-spirited and how—

[Kevin Rollason]

Yes.

The parents will have to do what we did. Initially, we went to our local MP. Then we went beyond that. We went to Human Rights. We were told that actually the change of the policy was okay, that it made it more equal for us. We still disagreed. So we finally found a lawyer who was willing to apply for court challenges program funding, and went forward. But until we had that, every step of the way we were either denied or we lost. It was only once we got the court challenges program funding and a lawyer, and went through that process, that things finally started happening.

We actually found, during our challenge, that when we made the freedom of information request, we got back documents from the federal government here in Ottawa that were our documents that we'd had beforehand, with our names blacked out. That showed us that the only time we actually started making some progress was when we had the lawyer funded by court challenges; there wasn't any before that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you for that.

Now coming to Ms. Tie, we have a situation, really, in which that ability to fight for equality rights is being taken away. Is it your sense that we're moving toward an American-style justice system, in which, essentially, unless people have money and financial resources, they're not going to have that access to equality that we should be maintaining and enhancing in this country?

[Chantal Tie]

I certainly agree with you that if you eliminate the program.... We've had a devastating parallel cut in legal aid in this country, as well. So it's kind of like a double whammy.

The difference, I think, between Canada and the United States is that litigation does proceed in the United States on many constitutional and test case issues. But they have a much more highly developed--what do you call it--foundation, money-giving organ in the United States, which is able to pick up the slack when the government does not give money in a way that.... It's just not that developed in Canada in terms of non-profit foundations' giving money out for litigation in the same way.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

In a real sense, because the American system is far from perfect, and in fact there are a lot of concerns about the lack of accessibility to the court system in the U.S., what you are saying is we'll be even worse.

[Chantal Tie]

Yes, it will be worse here because there isn't even the fallback of donor foundations that might give money for these kinds of things. It's just a very different tradition in this country. When you eliminate the access to justice through public funding here, it leaves a far bigger hole than it would in the United States.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

My last question is for Ms. Aucoin.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Your time is up.

Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all three of you for appearing before us today.

First of all, I have a question for Ms. Tie. You mentioned that you sat on the board of CCP for seven years. Is that correct?

[Chantal Tie]

That's correct.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Have any other members of your organization in the past sat on either a panel or the board or an advisory committee of the CCP?

[Chantal Tie]

The CCP is structured such that the people who have positions on the board are the membership. For instance, there's an equality side and a language side—

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I understand that.

Just so you know, I've researched the structure, and I understand who sits on it. My question was have there been other members of your organization who have also been involved in CCP, either on a committee or a panel or on the board?

[Chantal Tie]

Yes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

You see, that's one of the major criticisms of the program by Canadians, that it's almost incestuous, because the very people who receive the funding are also involved in the decision-making process and the governance of the court challenges program.

[Chantal Tie]

No, they're not.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I just wanted to make a comment—

[Chantal Tie]

No, they're not.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

—on some of your earlier comments.

You had made the statement that you believed that the CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers Foundation, was way off base, and then you went on to attack the current Conservative government. I found it actually profoundly presumptuous that you would suggest that those of us on the government side either have a gross ignorance of the law or that somehow we're involved in some level of doublespeak.

I can tell you that I have a pretty good understanding of the law, coming from a legal background myself, so it's not a matter of legal ignorance—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Julian.