Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, my name is John Rae. I'm second vice-chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. I appear with Anne Levesque, who is chair of our human rights committee.
We appreciate being invited to be here today. Being included in these proceedings is important for our work, and the court challenges program has been very important to the litigation side of our work. That's only part of what we do, however. We are a national organization, a consumer organization, and the primary voice of persons with disabilities at the national level.
You've heard the adage “nothing about us without us”. That's where we come in. We are that voice. We are involved in lobbying for legislation, in trying to improve public attitudes, and in trying to shape government policy. One of the things we do best is bring our community together to help government in its policy development role. Occasionally we get involved in litigation, particularly as intervenors, and we have participated in cases that have gone as far as the Supreme Court.
When we think about the historic division of powers in this country.... It is the same in every human rights commission, every year. The largest percentage of cases that are received fall in the prohibited ground of disability, and generally in the area of employment.
That is why we also support the expansion of the court challenges program to cover government actions at the provincial level. The extent of discrimination, exclusion, and oppression that is the reality of our community continues to be widespread, and we need the opportunity for more systemic responses to this kind of widespread exclusion and discrimination.
Similarly, at a human rights level, we often deal with one person's issue, one case at a time. That's too slow. The charter and human rights legislation, in our view, promised us something different. We've come further up the road in terms of being equal before it under the law, but we're a long way from realizing the charter's promise of equal benefit of Canadian law. This is why the court challenges program is important.
It's one thing to have good law in this country, and I think we have pretty good law. As citizens and organizations, if we do not have the resources to be able to test and try to expand what that law covers, then it's just not achieving what we need. This is where the court challenges program is important, has assisted us, and we look forward to its return.