Mr. Speaker, I am especially pleased to participate in this debate today. As a matter of fact, we moved a motion in the Standing Committee on Status of Women that was reported here last week by the chair, and which also called for the court challenges program to be restored. We had several reasons for doing so.
This afternoon, I would like to dedicate my speech to a new Conservative candidate from the Drummondville area, Mr. Komlosy, to show him the importance of being familiar with the cuts his party has made, and also the importance of the consultations we do to understand the needs of the public. I dedicate this speech to him.
We know that the court challenges program, as our Conservative colleague said, dates back to 1978. It has made a remarkable contribution to the development of constitutional law and to the rights of Canadians and Quebeckers over the last 28 years, but more work remains to be done. This program is fully accountable to the Government of Canada. It provides quarterly reports on its activities to the government and publishes an annual report with statistics on the number and types of cases that it has funded. The annual reports are public documents and are available on the court challenges program’s website. This is not some small, ad hoc program. The program was very well laid out and respected.
The court challenges program was subject to full and independent evaluations of its activities every five years. Since 1994, the program has been evaluated three times. On each occasion the evaluators found that the court challenges program was meeting the objectives set by the government in a cost-effective manner, and made unqualified recommendations that the court challenges program should continue to carry out its mandate.
This program was very important to the Fédération des femmes du Québec because it was crucial to financing precedent-setting legal action brought by groups and individuals to dispute federal policies and legislation that violated their constitutional right to equality. With the support of the court challenges program, women's organizations and other groups fighting for equality were able to access the legal system and introduce progressive interpretations of the legislation. Thanks to this program, women, gays and lesbians, people with physical disabilities and other disadvantaged groups now enjoy greater equality.
This is not the first time a Conservative government has abolished the court challenges program. The first time was in 1992. The public protested so vociferously that the government was forced to back down. During the 1993 elections, all of the federal parties said that if they were elected, they would reinstate the court challenges program for good, which is what the Liberal Party did in 1994.
When they take action without knowing the root causes of a problem, ignorance is a plausible excuse, but when they take action knowing full well the consequences of cutting a program like this one, they have to be acting in very bad faith if they would have us believe that their cuts have no impact on people's rights, on the rights of women and the disabled. They have to be acting in very bad faith.
The court challenges program subsidized the women's legal education and action fund in a case that challenged the use of sexist myths in rape trials. LEAF took the Ewanchuk case—in which the accused alleged that the way a woman dressed for a job interview could indicate her willingness to have sex with a potential employer—to the Supreme Court of Canada. Fortunately, the Supreme Court agreed with LEAF's arguments and rejected the defendant's sexist arguments.
The United Nations has repeatedly recognized the vital role that the court challenges program played in the respect and promotion of human rights in Canada. In January 2003, the CEDAW committee acknowledged the importance of the CCP in the struggle to end all forms of discrimination against women. Furthermore, in May 2006, the U.N. Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended that the court challenges program be expanded, not eliminated, to fund test case litigation against provincial laws and policies that violate constitutional equality rights.
I have here an article written by Mr. Batiste Foisy on November 2, 2006:
Cancelled in September by the Conservative government in its efforts to “cut the fat” and “eliminate wasteful programs”, the court challenges program (CCP) was, for many minority groups, the ultimate tool to ensure the respect of their constitutional rights. It was a Heritage Canada agency that provided funding to individuals and organizations challenging the constitutionality of legislation before the courts or taking action against a government for failing to meet its constitutional obligations. Most cases supported by the CCP dealt with the rights of linguistic minorities, equality of women, or the rights of minorities such as homosexuals, aboriginals or immigrants. The court challenges programs cost the Canadian government 18 cents per person per year.
It cost only 18 cents a year for each Canadian and Quebecker. Eighteen cents. They eliminated a program that worked, that was internationally recognized as a program that helped people maintain and assert their rights, for only 18 cents per person per year.
Naturally some organizations were pleased. You will not be surprised to hear that Real Women of Canada was one of the organizations that said that the program had financed only left-wing organizations which, with taxpayers' money, led to social restructuring through the courts and that eliminating the program promotes the advancement of democracy in Canada. We should remember that Real Women of Canada is a group of women opposed to same-sex marriage, abortion and divorce.
Mr. Roger Lepage has defended and won a number of cases—particularly with regard to access to French-language education in western Canada—with the help of the court challenges program. My father and his family moved to western Canada in 1920, when he was two years old. On Sundays, his mother was forced to hide and to take the children to the barn to teach them their first language so they would not forget it. That was in Dollard, Saskatchewan. She ran the risk of being arrested if discovered.
Progress has been made since then. We have obtained the right, even in the western provinces, to speak French and to be educated in French. Why? How? Thanks to the court challenges program which has served many causes. Members may recall the story of Montfort Hospital, which was almost forced to close its doors even though it was the only French-language hospital in the region. The people wanted to keep and protect it. They were very afraid of losing their hospital because then they would not have had access to services in their mother tongue. This program was very effective and served many good and noble causes.
Mr. Roger Lepage said that a minority is not in a position to exercise democratic power because it does not have demographic weight. We must remember this: a minority does not have demographic weight. Since they cannot count on parliamentarians, who speak on behalf of the majority, minorities must turn to the judiciary when their rights are violated. It is clear that the rights of a minority are not very popular with the majority. By cutting the funding available to minorities, the Conservative Party is attempting to return to a primitive democracy where the strict majority dominates.
He has experienced this primitive democracy. Like so many other Franco-Saskatchewaners of his generation, he knew a time when he had to hide his books on the way to school because French education was prohibited.
The Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française intends to take legal action against the government to overturn this decision. In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister on October 4, 2006, the coalition called on the government to overturn its decision. Lawyers Nathalie DesRosiers and Wayne McKay wrote the following on behalf of the coalition:
Canadian law is not perfect. Those who criticize the imperfections in order to live in equality with others deserve to be heard. By cancelling the court challenges program, your government has indicated that those people will not be heard and do not deserve to be.
The Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, known as FAFIA, believes that eliminating the program will slow down the promotion of Canadians and Quebeckers and be a setback for real equality. The co-chair of FAFIA, Shelagh Day said:
This program has provided Canadian women with their only access to the use of their constitutional equality rights.
That word, equality, has been dropped from the Conservative Party's vocabulary. Ms. Day continues:
Equal rights have no meaning in Canada if women, and other Canadians who face discrimination, cannot use them.
It is all well and good for the government to say that this was a good decision, that it was trimming fat, but it was actually trimming right to the bone. When the government wants to trim fat, it will cut things like military aircraft that cost billions of dollars but do not provide our soldiers with the necessary support. When the government wants to trim fat, it will cut things that will make a huge difference in people's lives.
Bonnie Morton of the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues said, “The cancellation of the court challenges program is an attack on the charter itself and the human rights of everyone in Canada”. I would add, “and everyone in Quebec”. The organizations affected are not little groups out in the backwoods somewhere. They are organizations across Canada and Quebec, serious organizations with a solid track record, credible organizations.
Yvonne Peters of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities also said:
When a country like Canada enacts constitutional rights, it takes for granted that residents, when they believe the government is violating their rights, can and will challenge any offending law or policy. If residents cannot ensure respect of their rights because of financial barriers, Canada’s constitutional democracy is hollow. We turn the Charter into a paper guarantee, with no real meaning.
Without the Court Challenges Program, Canada’s constitutional rights are real only for the wealthy. This offends basic fairness. And it does not comply with the rule of law, which is a fundamental principle of our Constitution.
Avvy Go of the Metro Toronto Chinese and South Asian Legal Clinic said:
Stephen Harper recognized this during the last election campaign, and he said then that if elected a Conservative government would “articulate Canada’s core values on the world stage”, including “the rule of law”, “human rights” and “compassion for the less fortunate”. The cancellation of the court challenges program belies this promise.
The Bloc Québécois has always supported causes that affect minorities, women, children and seniors. This cause affects them directly. When we can no longer defend our rights, when we no longer have access to a process that enables us to assert our rights, we become even poorer. There is enough poverty here, there is enough in Canada and there is enough in Quebec.
Poverty exists and we must fight it with any available means. The impoverishment of human rights is an even more important issue. It makes me even angrier because it leaves individuals without any resources and without any support; then they give up. Does this government want its citizens to be so subjugated that they no longer have the desire to live, to fight, to stand up for themselves? That seems to be the case. I am sorry to have to say it but that does seem to be the case. It could be said that this government wants to ensure that individuals will no longer have the ability to defend themselves.
The Bloc Québécois will not accept this. We will go on. That is why Mr. Komlosy can rest assured that, in Drummondville, we will continue to consult the public, to meet with the people, to meet with women, groups and individuals interested in the problems caused by the Conservative government cuts. I can rhyme off all these cuts, but I will focus on the slashing of the court challenges program.
In conclusion, I will refer to the Conservatives' argument that they thought it was useless to have a program that challenges the merits of federal legislation when the government makes good laws. But everyone can make mistakes. We may well be legislators, we may well want to make correct, fair and equitable legislation, but sometimes we make mistakes. A law is one of our tools, and we must re-examine it from time to time to ensure that it still reflects reality and to ensure that we still have reason to want to use it. There are times when a law is no longer valid. It has lost its relevance because it no longer meets the needs of the people, the public. There are times when it is unjust to certain parts of the population or certain segments of the population.
By abolishing the court challenges program, the Conservative government also wanted to silence the opposition voices. The Bloc Québécois knows something about civil opposition.
At the same time, the eligibility criteria for the women's program were changed so as to exclude rights and lobby groups. Mr. Komlosy, if you are listening, this is about women's rights. Women's rights groups and women's lobby groups no longer have access to the women's program. I want this to be clear. It is on the record and it must be the truth.
Once again, by cutting this program, by making cuts to other programs, the government is trying to silence the voices of women, the disabled and minorities. This is what the Bloc Québécois will continue to condemn.