The program has been supportive of the use of international human rights to interpret section 15 of the charter, so that I think would continue to be the case.
I'm now involved in a case having to do with the denial of access to the interim federal health benefit to a person who was applying for humanitarian and compassionate consideration and was ineligible. It was found that her right to life was violated, but the Canadian courts held that this finding was in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice under the charter. The Supreme of Court of Canada denied leave. We were able to file a petition under the optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right, where we take the same arguments before an international human rights treaty-monitoring body. The decisions rendered under the optional protocols have a fair bit of authority. They can influence the way in which Canadian courts may review what they did and reconsider, perhaps not in that case but in another. It's not an appeal procedure, but it's an important avenue for allowing disadvantaged groups to get a rethinking of an issue by an authoritative body that can then be fed into other cases.
I would hope that the court challenges program, in cases like mine, would be able to consider.... In fact, we got funding from the test-case funding committee of legal aid to do this case at the UN, so that committee has recognized that in some instances it's important to have access to international remedies after you've exhausted domestic remedies.
That's what I'm proposing.