Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House and defend the Court Challenges Program, anything which assists in putting meat on the bones of the charter.
We know that a right in law is not much use to somebody who cannot afford it or does not have the means by which to enforce it. To hear members of parliament suggest that having a right and having the inability to enforce it is nothing other than a taking away justice for those people is surprising.
We have a modest program which is available only to those who are disadvantaged in our society who are contending that their charter rights are not being respected to historically disadvantaged groups and those who have over time suffered most at the hands of the majority. One would have thought that members of parliament would be here to protect those very people and to do what they could to ensure their rights are protected and enhanced.
The program is a modest one. It provides modest support to those who have a case to make. The decision whether to support a program does not, as the member for Wanuskewin suggested, mean that the Court Challenges Program is doing the job of the court or this House. The Court Challenges Program and the experts who are there to dispense these relatively modest amounts are of the view that the case is one which is in the public interests to debate and one in which the person bringing it forward in the public interest is in need of some support in order to do that.
The program is unique and fundamentally an important one in the sense that it provides the opportunity to generate some substantive equality in Canada where that is presently not in place. It is limited in funds and it is limited to challenges to federal laws, policies and practices.
I ask those who would want to throw this program away do they not see some benefit in that program. Is their desire to throw that program way driven by ideology and not by common sense? I cannot believe that the member who wants to get rid of the Court Challenges Program would not be in support of the Court Challenges Response in assisting, for example, the Eldridge case, a deaf women to assert her right to sign language interpretation when she is communicating with physicians in her quest for health care.
Is there something wrong with that? Is there something wrong with ensuring that a woman who is deaf and who can only communicate through sign language can assert her right to be accommodated so that she can be treated as everyone else? I cannot believe that many in Canada would oppose assisting a woman in that situation.
Neither can I imagine that there would be many in Canada who would oppose the support to persons of colour who work for CIDA and who are asserting that there has been systemic racism in the employment practices of that department. It is not whether it is true. Surely we would want to support those who assert that it is true and who are affected by a practice which we would all condemn. Are there many in this country who would say that we should not as a society support someone in that quest to eliminate racism in a federal government department? Those who are saying we should get rid of this program would I suppose say that is not a very important question, racism in employment practices in government departments. I contend that most Canadians would disagree with that.
What about the case of an Indian woman who is being denied the right to participate in band elections? We hear a lot from the Reform Party about the need for accountability in Indian affairs. Here is an opportunity to support someone who is trying to ensure that there indeed is greater participation, greater democracy in Indian band elections. Would there be many who would legitimately complain about that?
What about the case of Tracey Smith, an aboriginal woman with children in both the United States and Canada? She is challenging immigration policies which prevent her from freely crossing the border to be with her children. We hear much from the Reform Party about families. Why would we not assist this mother to clarify this plainly unfair situation? Why would we not assist her so that she can be with her children, her family? I find it odd that those who argue so strenuously that they speak for families would not assist a mother to be with her children.
I am sure that few would disagree with the Court Challenges Program in its assistance to disabled persons. We know for example that immigrant status is generally denied to persons with physical disabilities. We must all have experienced the case of members of a family wanting to immigrate to Canada and finding they are faced with a choice of leaving their disabled child in their country of origin or in another place and coming to Canada with the rest of their family or not coming at all.
We should support those who try to resolve those kinds of disputes, the kind of thing the Court Challenges Program looks to assist a person with.
We have also experienced significant difficulties on behalf of our constituents with disability pensions. I am sure we have all seen the unfairness of that system. Why would we then not support the Court Challenges Program when it assists a disabled person to challenge the eligibility requirements for disability benefits which have adversely affected them?
It seems this program has provided a useful service to Canadians. It has enabled us to ensure that rights contained in the charter of rights and freedoms mean something to those who otherwise would not have the means to enforce them.
There are many cases in which the Court Challenges Program has provided Canada and our society and our community with significant benefits. Take the case of Mark Benner. He was born of a Canadian mother and an American father in the United States. Children born abroad of Canadian fathers do not have to apply for citizenship. Canadians born overseas of Canadian mothers do, which is a plain discrimination.
Why would anybody think it would be undesirable to assist Mark Benner in clarifying and changing this situation? Is there something justifiable about that discrimination? I think not. Would it not be useful then for us as a community and a society together to provide some support for that case?
The case which seems to have raised the member for Wanuskewin's ire most of all is that which is being brought and supported by the Court Challenges Program by Dr. Ailsa Warkinson from Saskatoon regarding section 43 of the Criminal Code. That provision provides a defence to a charge of assault against a child victim, that is child abuse, to a parent or a teacher who uses reasonable force for the purposes of correction.
There are a number of cases identified by Dr. Warkinson in which that argument, that defence, has been used to gain acquittal even in serious assault cases against children.
I cannot fathom any reason why anybody would want to be critical, oppose or stop either Dr. Warkinson or the Court Challenges Program in trying to do something about a very serious problem and, if we are really concerned about children, something we should be very seriously concerned about.
It is disturbing to see an obsession with opposition to anything governments do overriding common sense and overriding something that has been useful to many individual Canadians and to us as a society.