I'd like to start off by saying, in case nobody is aware of it, that this is the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. For that Charter of Rights and Freedoms to become a real, living document, we actually have to have access to it to use it as a domestic remedy when our constitutional rights are being violated.
Since 1985 we've had the right to protect equality rights. Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides the guarantees for equality before and under the law for all people in Canada. This guarantee isn't just for those who can afford to go into the courts; this guarantee is also to protect disadvantaged groups who probably wouldn't be able to get there. Aboriginal, disability, and women's groups are just a few of the groups that have actually accessed funding from the court challenges program. This funding made it possible for these disadvantaged groups to have access to justice and to ensure that their equality rights were protected.
I'd like to make reference to three cases that really show how they've actually expanded what the concept of rights is. I think you also need to understand that if we're going to have rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms...for it to be a living document, it has to grow with us as a society. That means our rights will also grow, and that's what the Constitution protects.
There's the Kevin Rollason case--and if I'm pronouncing anybody's name wrong, I apologize. He was the father of a young girl who was born with Down's syndrome and had life-threatening cardiac disease. He successfully challenged the employment insurance program's failure to provide full parental leave benefits to parents of children requiring a long-term stay in hospital.
Then there were the Misquadis. They were off-reserve, rural, and urban aboriginal communities that successfully challenged their exclusion from federal aboriginal human resources development agreements designed to allow aboriginal communities to create and implement employment and training programs to ensure job stability, even for those who did not live on reserve.
Then there was the Michael Hendricks and René LeBoeuf case. They were a Quebec-based same-sex couple who successfully challenged section 5 of the federal harmonization act, which declared marriage to be between a man and a woman only in Quebec.
I'd like to say here and now that these cases and many like them that received court challenges funding actually helped to define the definition and expand the definition of what equality rights really are in this country.
I'd like to end by saying that our rights become stagnant if we have absolutely no way of ensuring that we're being protected through our Constitution, that way being the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As soon as our rights become stagnant, so does that document called our Constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I'm here to ask each and every one of you to ensure that our rights and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms don't become stagnant in this country and to reinstate the funding to the court challenges program.