Yes, I'm happy to do so, Mr. Cooper.
That's an excellent question. Let me use the equal marriage one because I was involved in that. At the time we were contemplating addressing the problem of equal marriage, many groups across the country had views about how to approach that problem. Litigation was under way in Quebec. People in British Columbia and Ontario wanted to bring litigation. There was a lot of discussion about the effective strategy, and frankly, some people even within the LGBT community were wondering whether we should even be doing it at all.
Egale was given a modest amount of money to organize a conference in Toronto that brought together stakeholders from all parts of Canada, to have a very candid discussion about these issues, about the various strategies that could be deployed. For example, the people in British Columbia argued the provincial government was prepared to support an equal marriage challenge, and that's where we ought to proceed first. The people in Quebec were saying they already had litigation under way and that we ought to be supporting their measure.
It provided an opportunity for our group to have a very focused discussion about the way forward in a way that's not possible without that kind of assistance. I can't remember the amount that was given, but it was something like $25,000. It was a very modest amount of money for the whole equal marriage process. I believe Egale got about $160,000 in funding, whereas I know the federal government spent $400,000 on expert witnesses in the Ontario litigation alone, so you got a lot of bang for your buck, Mr. Cooper.