Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to say welcome to everyone. It's nice to see you again, Mr. Elliott. I can attest to the excellence of Egale Canada and their legal advocacy. I had the honour of working with Egale during the same-sex marriage case back in 2003.
I want to talk about money, because that seems to be the topic du jour here.
In your brief, Mr. Elliot, under the heading, “Leveraging the Private Sector”, you talked about cross-subsidization by small and medium-sized law firms. You said expert witnesses are key in section 15 litigation, and often provide their services free or for modest fees. You pointed out there's a heavy evidentiary burden in section 15.
I'd like all witnesses to talk about how we're going to divide a very small pie. Do we take one or two cases? I think you've suggested a $225,000 funding cap for litigation. That may be a reasonable number, but I can tell you we're not going to get many cases done.
Ms. Go, you were a panel member on the court challenges program. Can you tell us how you see it working? Will we do a few big blockbuster cases and very few others? How do we decide how to divide a small pie between equality-seeking groups?