Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member for Don Valley East talk about the establishment by the previous Liberal government of the court challenges program in 1994. However, what she has failed to mention to the House is that in the subsequent years the government of then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien so drastically cut the transfers to the provinces that, as a result, the Ontario legal aid plan in 1996-97 had to drastically cuts its financial support for legal aid certificates in Ontario.
In Ontario in 1996-97, only 75,000 certificates were issued, down from over 225,000 in the early 1990s. In other words, this was a reduction of more than 150,000 certificates per year. In other words, more than 150,000 cases, more 150,000 Canadian citizens in Ontario in each of those years 1996 and beyond, were denied justice because they did not have access to the legal aid program. That was as a direct result of the cuts to the transfers that the previous Liberal finance minister put in place in the mid-1990s.
Could the member for Don Valley East tell me how justice was served in the mid-1990s with such drastic cuts to the provincial transfers that resulted in the gutting of provincial legal aid plans?