Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to get right to it.
I just want to comment on Mr. Benson's testimony, rapidly. I'm not asking a question here.
First of all, the concept of a constitutional forum is an interesting one, and personally, I wouldn't mind investigating that a bit. But when you're arguing that the court challenges program is one-sided and that in society both sides need to be heard, I couldn't agree more. But in the case that we have described, I believe there's a limit to the amount of money that the court challenges program will give on any case—maybe $75,000, and I'd have to verify that—and in every single case that has gone before the tribunals, there has been someone arguing the other side, governments, whether the Government of Canada, or governments of the provinces, and they have limitless amounts of money arguing contra what's being argued via the court challenges program. So to insinuate that currently it's all one-sided, I'd have a bit of a difficulty with that.
I want to go to Madame Kheiriddin. I listened carefully and I read your February article in the National Post, and I can only infer from that that you agree that the cut of the program was ideological in nature.