There is an aspect of the Court Challenges Program that we sometimes overlook. When we first went to live in Moncton, there was no francophone secondary school. Mr. Murphy was the mayor at that time. I was a member of a parents group. There were seven anglophone secondary schools in the Greater Moncton Region and one francophone school in Dieppe. That meant that our children were on the road before seven in the morning and did not get home until 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. I am only talking about a normal school day, one that did not include sport or other extracurricular activities.
As a parent, I was a member of a group lobbying for a French-language secondary school in Moncton. Our parents group was made up of credit union directors and other people of high-standing in the community. We lobbied the government for years; among other things, we drafted business plans for the school. There was no French-language secondary school in what was suppose to be a bilingual city in New Brunswick. We lobbied the provincial government, but it did not want to meet with us.
Things changed when we were given some money from the Court Challenges Program; we were given $5,000 to carry out an impact study to determine whether we were entitled to a school. As soon as the courts become involved, the government became interested in talking to us. We now have a French-language secondary school in Moncton.
Yes, I benefited from this program when I was the President of the Association des juristes d'expression française du Nouveau-Brunswick, but not personally. The association was involved in cases, but it did not benefit me financially in any way. I benefited from the program when I was the President of the FAJEF, but never as a lawyer.