Mr. Speaker, I will try to make the most of what little time we have left, but I do appreciate the opportunity, on behalf of the NDP caucus, to enter into the debate.
I would like to recognize and pay tribute to my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier for bringing the issue to the floor of the House of Commons today by moving a concurrence motion to a report from the heritage committee. It is timely. He is doing a service to the country by bringing this fulsome debate to the House of Commons today.
This is an issue that the government clearly wanted to slip in under the wire, with very little fanfare and very little notice. We are not prepared to let this issue go under the table. We will not let the government slip it under there without having a full scrutiny debate in the House of Commons and without a vote in the House of Commons. We want to shine the light of day on what really is going on with this issue so the government does not get away with it, not if we can help it.
The federal government would have us believe that it is eliminating the court challenge program because it is somehow frivolously funding every Tom, Dick and Harry to sue their own government over legislation that it puts in place. Essentially this is the answer we heard in question period when the President of the Treasury Board was pressed on this issue. We were pressing the minister for the business case. We were pressing him for some reason, some rationale as to why this heavy-handed move was justified. This is a deliberately simplistic and misleading overview of what the court challenge program does.
The one thing that the member for London West has done for us is spell out, not just what the federal court challenge program does, but the things that it does not do. It certainly does not provide funding to anyone who wants to sue the federal government. There are very rigid tests. The bar is set very high as to what type of challenges qualify for any support under the court challenges program.
It is a matter when legislation, by omission or commission, offends the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or the Constitution of Canada, or it somehow is applied in such a way that a legitimate group of Canadians feel that they are not being treated equally by their own Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The highest duty of a member of Parliament is to ensure that all Canadians are treated equally.
I am proud to say that this is one country in the world where equality is our main objective, which is not the case everywhere in the world. In Canada we have very meticulously written in to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms the assurance that Canadians can count on being treated equally as far as the application of services, benefits or anything provided by the government. Therefore, it is not a nuisance to the government to have Canadians or organizations test the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by these regular court challenges. It strengthens our rights. Our rights are made more secure by these challenges.
We should keep in mind that the Canadian Constitution is not a rigid document. It is a living, breathing, evolving document that can benefit from these rare and infrequent tests and challenges.
We should at least start from the same base level of information as we ask Canadians to concern themselves with this debate. They should go into this with their eyes open. Clearly the government has tried to sneak this through in a flurry of other activity and other cutbacks, hoping no one will notice this relatively small budget line. Let us be fair. This is a very small amount of money on the global scale of things. Let us also ensure that misinformation is not what is guiding us here. We have to challenge comments from the President of the Treasury Board when he says that all the money just goes to Liberal lawyers anyway.
My colleague from Windsor pointed out that these challenges are often collaborative efforts by non-profit groups and NGOs. They find lawyers to work pro bono. The court challenge money they get, or the enabling money, is often used to pay for court costs, expert witnesses, research, et cetera.
Having laid that foundation, I challenge the veracity of both of the excuses given by the President of the Treasury Board. I think we could then begin to have a proper debate about whether or not we need this assistance in our judicial system.
Let me point to one case to illustrate how valuable this program can be. It is my own personal experience. In Winnipeg Centre the Community Unemployed Help Centre deals with people who are having trouble with their employment insurance. On behalf of one client, Kelly Leisuk, the centre launched a Federal Court challenge sponsored by the court challenge program . The centre maintained that the EI act does not treat women equally, that women suffer a gender imbalance with the application of EI as it was evolved by the Liberal government.
When the EI system went from a weekly based system to an hourly based system, women were disproportionately and negatively impacted in that more women worked low wage part time jobs and so women qualified less often for any EI benefits than men did. The empirical evidence was fairly straightforward. Frequent appeals to the federal government bore no satisfaction at all. We made the case to the federal government that the EI program was affecting women negatively, but the government of the day was deaf to this gender imbalance. The only avenue of recourse was to make a charter challenge under section 15, the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that the EI act as contemplated by the Liberal government offended the charter.
Where else would a non-profit workers' organization go? Its total budget, and I know because I sat on its board of directors, is $250,000 a year. That funded four staff to advocate on behalf of people having trouble with their employment insurance. Where would an organization like that go to launch a massive Supreme Court challenge if not to the court challenge program?
When viewed in that light, it is an issue of natural justice, in this case on behalf of Canadian women. They would not have a voice and would not be able to have legal representation in this compelling matter were it not for the court challenges program. It is not unlike legal aid. We do not allow defendants to go into a courtroom unrepresented. They are given legal aid. No one argues if that is fair. It is a natural justice issue. In that same context, from time to time we need to test the veracity of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and thereby strengthen it by these court challenges by legitimate groups within Canada.
I condemn the government for cutting the court challenges program. I thank my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier for giving us the opportunity to voice those concerns in the House today.