Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote for the member a comment that was made to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which, incidentally, recognizes that the court challenges program is an important tool for accessing justice for Canada's historically disadvantaged marginalized groups.
The government itself, during a recent presentation to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, stated:
It is not possible for the government to support all court challenges, but this uniquely Canadian program has been successful in supporting a number of important court cases that have had direct impacts on the implementation of linguistic and equality rights in Canada. A recent evaluation found that there remain dimensions of the constitutional provisions currently covered by the CCP that still require clarification and the current program was extended to March 2009.
Is that government representative, in his capacity as parliamentary secretary, prepared to table in this House, or make available to the relevant committee, a copy of the evaluations of the program? Those documents need to be made available to Parliament. Did the government conduct an evaluation of this program before deciding to cut it? If so, can we have a copy of that evaluation?