Thank you and good morning.
My name is Christopher Schafer, and I'm a lawyer at Gowling Lafleur Henderson, in their advocacy and government relations practice group. Today I'm here as a director on the board of the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation exists to protect the constitutional freedoms of Canadians through education, communication, and litigation. Among other things, the foundation supports equality before the law, equal rights and equal opportunities for all Canadians, and special privileges for none. The foundation is supported in the work it does by Canadians who voluntarily donate their money.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation supports the elimination of the court challenges program. All Canadians, through their tax dollars, have paid to advance the public policy agendas of various special interest groups who received court challenges program funding, whether they agreed with those agendas or not. This is unfair.
This unfairness can be illustrated by example. Under the section 15 equality provision of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, human dignity is the central element of equality. In order for an impugned government action to constitute an infringement of section 15 equality rights, the action must be held to detrimentally impact a claimant's human dignity by perpetuating or promoting the view that an individual is less capable or worthy of recognition or value as a human being or as a member of Canadian society.
For some, such as those groups that have historically obtained funding under the court challenges program, human dignity is violated when, for example, receipt of welfare is dependent on participation in job training programs. For them, a welfare law that reduces welfare payments for those who refuse to participate in training-related programs offends human dignity because human dignity can only emanate from the state via bigger government and related expenditures. For others, however, such welfare laws enhance human dignity because they foster independence rather than dependence, and feelings of self-worth rather than self-loathing. Thus, while the pursuit of human dignity is capable of manifesting itself in the pursuit of substantive equality of result, in the opinion of some, it is also, I argue, equally capable of manifesting itself in the pursuit of individual liberty and equality of opportunity.
To solely fund those groups that argue that only one vision of human dignity exists under section 15 of the charter is unfair. In the case of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, it arose from a court challenge launched by Nisga'a Indian Chief Mountain and Nisga'a matriarch Mercy Thomas, who continue to challenge the Nisga'a Final Agreement for violating their constitutional rights. This is a current, ongoing battle in the courts. They've persisted in their challenge for over seven years without any government funding, relying on the generosity of Canadians who continue to donate money to this cause voluntarily.
Despite any litigation funding from the court challenges program, Chief Mountain's constitutional challenge continues to advance. This is the way it should be. Chief Mountain is, arguably, more disadvantaged than any of the groups that received court challenges program funding in the past. Members of linguistic minorities in Canada are far more numerous and have far more resources than Chief Mountain and Mercy Thomas.
Government funding in respect of language issues and minority rights invariably advances a particular philosophical viewpoint to the exclusion of others. Constitutional issues are animated by numerous perspectives, not only that of the government and particular minority, or in this case, the language group, but by the interest of other minorities and the interest of members of a minority group who do not feel represented by the group pursuing the litigation in their name.
Canadians should not be compelled through their tax dollars to contribute to causes with which they disagree. Canada's Constitution belongs to all Canadians, not just those who agree with the ideology of the court challenges program. The elimination of the court challenges program has put all groups on an equal footing, at liberty to raise funds from their own supporters to support their own causes. This is fair.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.