Mr. Speaker, I will address with the member the whole issue of how people living with disabilities would be able to access their rightful place in terms of laws that might discriminate against them without the court challenge program.
I want to somehow get away from this heated rhetoric in the House right now because there is so much at stake with the loss of the court challenges program that it might get lost. We have an opportunity to get through to the government today about the importance of court challenges when it comes to a whole variety of people who are treated, in many ways, as second class citizens.
We have heard about women's equality. We have heard about visible minorities, but I do not think we have spent very much time talking about people with disabilities.
The member may know that not too long ago Mary Rollason-MacAulay, a young woman with a very serious disability, came with her father, Kevin Rollason, from Winnipeg, to talk to the government. Without the benefit of the court challenges program, they would never have been able to demonstrate that in fact the employment insurance program was discriminating against people with disabilities. Their efforts through the court challenges program broke down barriers and opened up all kinds of opportunities for people living with disabilities.
Could the member from Kitchener to talk about what is available to people to challenge our laws that might discriminate today on the basis of ability or disability? What opportunities exist without the court challenges program to accomplish exactly the same thing, and is this not reason enough to persuade the government to put back such an important program?