Good morning.
A number of questions have been raised by witnesses before this committee, and a number of our comments are included in our brief. I would like to make a few comments.
With respect to the concern that only one side of an issue is funded by the program, we should remember that the original intention in creating the CCP was to provide funding for test cases under the equality and language provisions of the Charter and Constitution.
These equality and language provisions, by their very nature and wording, are meant to expand these fundamental rights. The idea is for everyone to be equal before and under the law and also to have access to official language services. The very notion under these provisions is inclusiveness; challenges under these provisions would naturally seek to expand the number of people who can participate. This is what has driven the funding decisions under the program. Allusions to the funding under the CCP as being too narrow a portal are exaggerated, as the CCP is about granting a voice to those who do not have one in the first place. It is not about exclusion, but rather about providing a means of access and justice.
In reply to the concern that only one side of an issue is funded by the program, it is important to remember this purpose: the program was meant to provide access to justice for a specific demographic; anyone opposed to the challenge would in fact be supporting the government, which has the ability (and has done so in the past) to bring the perspectives and arguments of these supporting groups before the courts.
The program is meant to provide a balance and help to level the playing field in the sense that it provides funding to groups and individuals who would not otherwise have a voice as the government is not representing them.
It would be counter-productive to support cases that would seriously jeopardize the rights of a group that is supposed to be protected by equality and language rights. Far from being just a matter of differing visions of equality, as our critics claim, the program refuses to fund cases that could likely undermine the equality and language rights of these protected groups.
The second issue I would like to raise is why governments should fund individuals to launch court challenges against the government.
The concept of justice, as Mr. Matte said earlier, necessarily includes access to justice. And as Prof. Lorne Sossin of the University of Toronto has noted, access to justice requires resources. Ensuring adequate resources for the people of Canada to obtain access to the courts is therefore essential for promoting justice and creating a sound civil society.
Several government-funded litigation programs exist, all based on this principle. For example, there's the Test Case Funding Program of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Aboriginal Rights Court Challenges Program of the Northwest Territories, legal aid programs for criminal cases involving incarceration, legal aid programs for civil cases, primarily family law, and other special provincial legal aid programs aimed at assisting disadvantaged individuals, related to provincial issues.
So there are already government-funded programs that help Canadians challenge certain laws or government practices. The CCP was but one of such programs. It focused specifically on official language rights and equality rights under the Charter and Constitution.
The CCP was meant to provide access to justice for Canada's historically disadvantaged—those who are most vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion from full participation in Canadian society—who are trying to claim their full and proper place in Canada. Without this access to justice, these disempowered groups and individuals will no longer have a voice in their efforts to seek equality and recognition.
The final point I'd like to address is with regard to conflict of interest. The court challenges program of Canada is keenly aware of conflict of interest. Over the years it has reviewed and revised its conflict of interest policy. Many members of the board, panels, committees, and staff are lawyers and are accordingly governed by their respective law societies and are subject to strict conflict of interest rules. Their current policy reflects a very high standard for ensuring that no one on any of the CCP's committees can receive either a direct or an indirect benefit in the use of public funds. We have attached the program's conflict of interest policy for your information, and we'd be happy to answer any questions about it.
I would add that the structure of the court challenges program is such that the decision-making panels are independent of the board. The board looks after the administrative aspect of the program while the decision-making panels look after the actual funding of applications. The board is not privy to the applications received, nor is it to the decisions that are made.
Further, the members appointed to the panels are chosen primarily for their expertise in equality or language rights. Secondary considerations relate to having panels that are diverse and regionally represented. I can add that regional representation and diversity are also looked at in composition of the board.
As an additional form of accountability, the court challenges program regularly reports the names and biographies of each member on the board, panels, and staff, both in its annual reports and on its website. This means there's an increase in transparency as the court challenges program wants to fully account for everything it is doing and who is doing it, which ultimately is for the benefit of Canadian society as a whole. While not everyone may like the court challenges program, it has resulted in providing greater equality and official language rights services to Canadians.