Thank you very much to the witnesses for their testimony this morning. It was very informative. I would like to direct my first question to Mr. Bastarache.
Certainly, the Court Challenges Program predated the charter. However, with the adoption of the charter, there was, I think, a widespread consensus that there was a need for a Court Challenges Program, that the Court Challenges Program needed to have its mandate expanded to test cases, to develop a body of case law. I happened to run across an article in the National Post that was published on April 6, 2000, in which you are quoted, particularly in the context of intervenors who appear before courts. You were quoted as saying, “we have lived with the Charter for 18 years.... There isn't the same need there was in 1982 to obtain help from intervenors”.
It has now been about 34 years since the Charter of Rights was adopted. Do you hold the same view, and how would that square in terms of a mandate of an expanded or renewed Court Challenges Program?