Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today about court challenges, the status of women and the problem we face because of what the government has done. The government has gotten us into a situation that will affect our country's future. Allow me to explain.
Canada had the court challenges program. It was eliminated by Brian Mulroney's Conservatives, who governed from 1984 to 1993, and was later reinstated. What did the court challenges program allow people to do?
Earlier, one of our Conservative colleagues talked about legal aid. I think he completely missed the mark, because legal aid and the court challenges program are two completely different things.
A previous government and Parliament gave us the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In cases where the charter was violated, the court challenges program gave people the opportunity to go to court and seek a court ruling.
When we look at the court challenges program, it was used a million different ways. For example, in New Brunswick in 2003-04 when the electoral boundaries were changed, part of my riding of Acadie—Bathurst was put in Miramichi. It is because of the court challenges program that the boundary was reinstated.
The regions of Allardville, Big River, Tetagouche, North Tetagouche, and South Tetagouche around Bathurst that were part of the riding of Acadie—Bathurst were reinstated because of the court challenges program. That is how my riding was saved.
We say that francophones are a minority in Canada. Even in Bathurst the anglophones were saying that in the region of Acadie-Bathurst the anglophones were a minority. By putting more anglophones in Miramichi it gave the Conservatives a better chance for a minority.
Constituents were arguing that Big River, South Tetagouche, North Tetagouche and Little River, all the small areas around Bathurst, had to stay in Acadie—Bathurst. It is through the court challenges program that we got back the riding. If it were not for the court challenges program, we would never have gotten it back. I am thankful to the program for it.
Francophones still have their own schools in Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia thanks to the court challenges program. The program was used not only in the maritime and Atlantic provinces, but in Ontario as well. Here in Ottawa, the Montfort Hospital still exists today because of the court challenges program.
People in Toronto and Sudbury also benefited from the court challenges program. Francophones at Collège Boréal were able to go to court for the right be served in their own language in their province. There were similar cases in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The court challenges program was used across Canada.
This Conservative government has even told this House that one of the reasons it abolished the program was that the program benefited friends of the Liberals by giving them the chance to make money on court cases.
I do not know if there has been an investigation into whether friends of the Liberals indeed benefited. Nonetheless, in our region, people fought hard for the court challenges. Michel Doucet, a lawyer and professor at the Université de Moncton, did pro bono work defending the rights of francophones.
Today, we see we have to fight again in New Brunswick, a bilingual province, to have bilingual service from the RCMP. We had to take our case to the Supreme Court of Canada because the previous Liberal government decided to appeal. Today the federal Conservative government is pursuing the appeal at the Supreme Court. My hat goes off to Michel Doucet, a lawyer who is not earning any money fighting for the rights of francophones. He should be commended.
Furthermore, I do not accept the claim that the court challenges program was used to make lawyers richer since most of them are not getting paid. Only the legal fees are covered. The money was used to cover the legal fees.
On September 23, 2006, at the summit of la Francophonie in Romania, it was sad. More than 50 French-speaking nations were at the summit. Instead of talking about la Francophonie, the Prime Minister of Canada talked about the war between Israel and Lebanon. While we were in the midst of participating in the summit of la Francophonie in Romania, the federal Conservative government announced that it was taking away the tools that allow us to challenge legislation and government procedures, the tools that allow us to go to court to get justice.
Senator Gerald Comeau, who was at the summit of la Francophonie, said he did not accept these cuts. Senator Andrée Champagne did not accept these cuts by her own government. I can assure you that this had little impact on the Conservative Party, which is not progressive, but an amalgamation of the Canadian Alliance Party and the Reform Party. That is where it comes from. It has not changed. It does not want to do anything for the communities or the status of women. There was a time in this House when a woman could not even become a member of Parliament.
At one time, women could not even be members of Parliament in this House. They had to work hard. The Status of Women has done a lot for the women of our country and this government is taking away all its tools and cutting its funds.
What is the government scared of? Is it scared that for once women could have equality with men? Is that what it is scared of? Does it not want them to be treated as equal persons in our country, that they have money to challenge that when it is not done?
The government should be ashamed of itself for what it has done. It cut literacy programs when we have people in our country who do not know how to read and right, and we had groups working hard in that respect.
The government went further than that. The Conservative Party even cut the association for volunteers. The volunteers who work so hard and who put in so many hours for our country have an association that the government has cut. It has taken the money away and that is a shame.
I could hear the Liberals saying “Bring it down”. What? When we look at the cuts, it is totally unacceptable. I believe that people will remember what the government took away from the people, what it took away from the minorities in our country. When we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms with no tools to go to court and challenge a bad decision, we might as well not have one. The little people who want to challenge the government will never have the money to go to the Supreme Court of Canada. That was done through the court challenge program. That is what the Conservative government took away from them.