Justice Committee on Nov. 6th, 2006

[Melina Buckley]

To add very briefly to that, legal fees are only part of what the money goes to. In these constitutional cases, disbursements are very high for things such as expert reports. You'd be amazed at the costs that go just to photocopying and to everyday things such as travel to get to court and having your experts and witnesses get to court and so on. If there is any idea that lawyers are getting rich from this Court Challenges Program, it's completely wrong.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

My second question is this. I thought the minister today showed a really high level of ignorance of the use some of the studies have been put to. I think in particular of the study the Law Commission did on electoral reform in the country a few years ago and of all the work that was done in committee, in this House in the last Parliament, using that report as one of their basic documents.

I wonder whether you can point, either Ms. Buckley or Ms. Thomson, to any other studies like this that have been used by parliamentary committees or by commissions.

[Melina Buckley]

I can't think of any particular studies offhand, but they certainly informed the debate generally in other law reform measures.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

Mr. Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Good afternoon. I'm going to speak in French. Thank you for being here, and I congratulate you on your argument for the organization you represent. I have a few brief questions.

First, what is the percentage of the financial contribution you make relative to the total cost of a case? Could you enlighten me on that subject?

Second, you're not necessarily able to accept all proposals. What is the percentage of requests that you handle?

What is the impact of your organization on cases? Is it really useful? Could cases be heard without the support of your organization?

[Prof. Ken Norman]

Thank you for the question. The percentage varies from case to case in terms of the complexity of the case, but the funding is a subvention; it is a partial support, and other ways, sometimes through pro bono work, are found for the case to move forward.

With regard to the data, in terms of—

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Do you have a rough ratio?

[Melina Buckley]

If you spoke with lawyers who do these kinds of cases, they would say it's 50% to 60% of the cost.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

That much? Okay.

[Melina Buckley]

It depends. Sometimes, with more complex cases, you wouldn't even be covering the disbursements, because at the trial level the program has a ceiling of $60,000. The disbursements in one case I heard about recently were $125,000. That's just the hard costs of running the case, with nothing going to lawyers. So as Mr. Norman said, it depends on the nature of the case.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

How many cases do you have?

[Prof. Ken Norman]

Thank you for that. I have it in my brief on page five, which you'll have before you once it's translated.

Let me just give you some numbers here in terms of total budget for this past year and total number of cases. There were $525,000 allocated to language rights and $1.5 million to equality rights this year. This amount covers an average of 123 applications for equality rights funding and an average of 35 applications for language rights funding, so you do the math. A quick calculation demonstrates the limited nature, on a per-case basis, of the money that can be contributed.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Do you refuse some demands?

I imagine you also reject requests.

[Prof. Ken Norman]

Yes, it's covered in our annual report and we publish—

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Okay, I may check in it.

[Prof. Ken Norman]

Please do. It's available on our website. Our brief gives you our website. We have bar charts and pie charts that show you province by province, issue by issue.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Okay, I'll check in that.

My other question is for Mr. Benson.

Mr. Benson, I'd like to know this. Do you think the Law Reform Commission of Canada did a good job of carrying out its mandate for Canadian society and for the government? I'd like to have your opinion on the Law Reform Commission of Canada. You briefly addressed this question in your presentation. Perhaps you could go back to it. With regard to the way in which it performs its mandate, do you see any improvements that should be made. How can that mandate be carried out?

[Iain Benson]

As I said earlier, my comments were primarily directed to the Court Challenges Program.

With respect to the Law Commission, the report of theirs that I know very well was the one with respect to close personal relationships, looking at the marriage question. I thought that report was very rigorous within a certain ideological framework. Implicit in what I just said is that it missed a great deal because of the ideology it brought to bear on it.

Whether that kind of bias was common to all their work, I'm not qualified to say. I haven't studied it. On that particular study, there were some very important questions that I thought were massively under-evaluated, such as the role of the state in relation to marriage itself, which is a primary question that's never really been properly addressed in Canada. The fact that the Law Commission failed to analyze that I thought was very telling.

So no, on that particular report, I thought it was not well done.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Blaney.

That brings to a conclusion our meeting. I want to thank all of the witnesses for appearing today and for your presentations. It's very much appreciated. Part of this examination of course will result in, I believe, a report that will be sent forward to the minister.

Thank you for your appearance.

This meeting is adjourned.