I'll get to the conclusions, then.
There was absolutely no justification for the abolition of the Court Challenges Program, either in 1992 or in September 2006. In all the years of its existence, it had excelled in the performance of its mandate to clarify and advance constitutional rights and freedoms related to equality and official minority-language cases by providing financial assistance. It has been the major force and instrument in obtaining access to justice for official-language minorities and equality-seekers from its inception and, I would say, right up to the present day.
Yes, I did say “present day” because, despite rumours of its demise, the Court Challenges Program is still very much intact, active, operational, and viable. Its seven-person board of directors and the members of both rights panels—the language rights panel and the equality rights panel—have remained in place since September 25, 2006. The board submitted persuasive arguments. Harper would have cut every cent from the program immediately on September 25. We presented arguments that convinced the very reluctant government to allow the Court Challenges Program to continue supporting and funding test cases that had been approved by the two panels prior to the cuts. We won the right to have these cases funded up to final resolution or final appeal. The Caron case was just decided in January before the Supreme Court of Canada, and other cases continue, too, which is proof of the amount of money and time it takes to fund a court challenge.
As a result of this small victory for the CCP stakeholders, all members of both panels and the board of directors made commitments to stay in place and continue their work and functions for as long as it took to complete this mandate, or until the Court Challenges Program was restored and reinstated. It has been almost 10 years since we made that commitment. With the exception of one board member, who retired in January 2015 and was replaced with Mr. Frank Verrillo, we are all still here. For the record, all of us on the board and the two panels are unpaid volunteers. Nobody has bought us a cup of coffee in 10 years. May I ask you to consider what this indicates about the Court Challenges Program and its invaluable work on behalf of our official minority-language communities and equality rights communities to inspire that level of commitment?
Our sincere thanks to this government and to this committee, and especially to Justice and Heritage, for conducting consultations—that certainly was not done in 1992, and it was not done in 2006—with the communities and stakeholders in an attempt to determine how access to justice can best be achieved.