This was exactly the problem with the program, and Mr. Benson also discussed it. Groups such as Kids First, other family-oriented groups, REAL Women, and the Nisga'a elders in British Columbia were specifically denied funding. They were told they were not going to get the money. In the case of the Nisga'a elders, I interviewed the lawyer involved in that case, John Weston, and he said specifically that when it became clear that they were going to challenge the treaty, they were told their funding was going to be pulled.
When you see the list of litigants who did receive funding and the motives they had behind the cases--the types of legal opinions they were advancing--that's where the problem comes in. If you're funding only one type of legal opinion to the exclusion of the other, you're going to get cases brought forward continuously to advance one particular view.
If you look at the 24 equality rights judgments between 1984 and 1993, nine of them had a party or intervenor funded by the CCP. Most of these were successful. So it may not be a lot of money but it did have an impact. If that impact is only going one way, that's a problem.
What you said earlier about the original purpose of the program is really important to keep in mind. The reason we're here is partly because of what Graham Fraser pointed out about the 2005 amendments to the Official Languages Act, and the sort of positive duty that's imposed on the government. For example, we don't have an official religion act, an official mobility rights act, or an official equality act, with these types of positive obligations to fund or create programs to advance them.
The point I'm trying to make is that if you look at the language—