When I say peripherally, I mean peripherally, and especially in some of the cases I think about in particular.
When I say peripherally, I mean I have been a member of an organization that puts together committees--to different organizations--to tackle specific issues. And those committees are always moving. So on your first question, for example, with respect to the political affiliation of the lawyers who may or may not be hired, the lawyers or legal experts who have been retained, for the most part, are not paid, and we're looking at really just covering some of the minimal costs. They are commissioned or retained on the basis of their expertise on a certain issue.
For us, that is, the National Association of Women and the Law and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund...it is on their particular understanding, let's say, in criminal law or family law, or whatever area it happens to be, on the equality theory and analysis that is at stake in those issues. So it's always a different committee that is pulled together for the purposes of a particular challenge.
I want to talk to this broadly before specifically. I would like to think that on a moment-to-moment basis, if we look at whether we won this case, if there's a “we” to win it, because as a third-party intervention you don't have that stake in it, I think the record is no, there's been quite a trail of losses. That's because the perception is that organizations are somehow personally invested in the win or the loss. Where the win takes place, and this is my stake, is in the elaboration of the theory and approach to the principles of the law, such as substantive equality.
Canada is internationally recognized for our approach to equality, for our understanding that equality, for example, isn't about treating people the same, but about taking into account the different needs and circumstances and positioning in society. A great example would be the Eldridge case, where a pregnant woman who is hearing impaired goes to a hospital and does not have the benefit of access to medical services that all other women with the ability to hear have.
Getting the courts to participate in the collective and collaborative process of developing a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of equality is where, to me, the wins are, and I've been peripherally involved in cases that have taken a long approach to that struggle.