Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech on the court challenges program, which has been so essential to linguistic minority groups.
She used Saskatchewan as an example. Her family lived in a community where there was no opportunity to receive an education or training in French, the family's mother tongue.
My grandfather was elected for the first time in 1907, in Nova Scotia. It was against the law in Nova Scotia to teach Acadians in their mother tongue. Thus, he had to appoint a inspector of francophone schools who would turn a blind eye when French-language textbooks were used. French-language textbooks did exist. One hundred years later, after the year 2000, there were still court challenges before the Supreme Court of Canada. Those cases were funded by the court challenges program, thereby giving us francophone schools and allowing us to run our schools.
The Conservatives say they support the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They say they want to ensure that federal programs are beyond dispute. However, they seem to ignore the fact that we must also live with provincial programs and that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to all those programs. I think it is fair to say that they want to destroy the charter by destroying resources.