Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I participate in tonight's debate and rise in favour of the motion of my leader, the Leader of the Opposition, on the Conservative government's wrong-headed decision to eliminate the court challenges program.
I was very happy to hear what my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst had to say. I think he quite nicely summed up the situation in our province, New-Brunswick, and emphasized the importance of that program. The member from Hochelaga also spoke, a few minutes ago, of the importance of the program with regards to protecting minority groups across the country.
We have often asked ourselves why a government who had just boasted about having a 13 billion dollar surplus would announce budget cuts only days later. They slashed literacy programs, which has had a very negative effect on many communities in my riding, and killed the court challenges program for what we believe to be purely ideological reasons.
The question of access to justice for minorities such as the Acadians whom I proudly represent in this House, whether it be courts of first instance or the Supreme Court of Canada, has always been important.
As other colleagues have so well noted, this concerns not only the Acadians I represent or the francophone minorities that had to use the court challenges program to assert their rights, but also minorities and other groups all across Canada whose rights are sometimes restricted by a bill that a government or a Parliament passed without realizing its impact on a freedom or a right enshrined in our Constitution.
We have asked ourselves many times why a government, with large budgetary surpluses, would decide to abolish a program as important as the court challenges program but also a program that represented such a small expenditure, and there is no credible explanation. That is why, when the Minister of the Environment, the former president of the treasury board, talked about budgetary restrictions and good fiscal management, and the parliamentary secretary even tried to pretend that same argument a few minutes ago, it simply does not hold water.
To simply cut a program as modest financially and fiscally as was the court challenges program and claim that it was about good fiscal management simply does not make sense. What that was about was an ideology of the Conservative Party, something that had been written about, for example, by people like the Prime Minister's current chief of staff. They, for a long time, have believed that only certain voices should be heard in our courts and only certain groups should have access to the courts as a way to advance their rights.
The cost of litigation can be prohibitive. If it is even bringing a motion or filing an application before a trial division court, it can cost many thousands of dollars for an individual or a group to simply get to the first level of our court process. Ultimately, when an important constitutional or charter right is to be decided, it is often at the Supreme Court of Canada where that decision is made in a way that then binds the lower courts and binds Parliament in a way that cannot be changed.
By the time a case reaches the Supreme Court of Canada, it takes many years to finally be adjudicated upon and decided but it also costs, in many cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars. The government cynically claimed that while it was lawyers who benefited from the court challenges program, that is a rather dismissive and unfortunate attitude to take when a program had done so much to help so many millions of vulnerable Canadians assert their rights before the highest courts of the land.
We have a government that has no belief in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have a government that does not believe that the judiciary should in fact have the right and the obligation to examine acts of government and legislation passed by this House as it stands up to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to other constitutional provisions.
Unfortunately, that was decided by Parliament 26 years ago. Mr. Speaker, you were in the House at the time when that important constitutional amendment took place, the Patriation Act, the adoption of the charter. It was a very proud moment, I am sure, for all parliamentarians who sat in the House on that day. I know my father, who sat with you, Mr. Speaker, in the House in those days in the 1980s, often told us that one of his proudest moments as a member were those historic debates and those important votes where a Liberal government, with the support of the New Democrats at the time, advanced the rights and the institutions of democracy in a way that no previous Parliament had been able to do.
We now have a government that has never fully accepted in Canada that there is a role for the judiciary in the adjudication of rights. That is why we have seen bizarre examples where it will seek to load up committees to review lawyers' applications as to whether they are qualified to sit on the bench. That can only be done for ideological reasons.
As I have already said a few minutes ago, we strongly believe that the court challenges program did a great deal to support minority language communities across the country, not just francophones in a minority situation outside Quebec, but also Quebec anglophones.
I have the privilege to be the desk mate of the hon. member for Saint Boniface, Manitoba. This is your province, Mr. Speaker. That hon. member has often spoken to me of the importance of this program and of the contribution that the cases brought before the courts, with the help of the court challenges program, made to education in French in Manitoba.
There were some jurists from New Brunswick at the time. My colleague for Acadie—Bathurst referred to Michel Doucet, who went to Manitoba to support the Franco-Manitobans, to encourage them not to give up and to advance their case before the courts, which moreover eventually gave the francophones of Manitoba far more rights.
One wonders why the government would decide one day to do away with this program. The only reason can be that we have a government that does not believe in the Charter of Rights, that does not have much interest in backing minorities in Canada, and that is worried that some day a judge, or the Supreme Court of Canada, is going to give equality rights to same sex couples, for example.
We have seen historical court and appeal court decisions on equality rights for same sex couples regarding civil marriage. We found that to be a wholly appropriate expenditure for a court challenges program to support Canadians in standing up for their rights and claiming what has been their due for a very long time.
In an open and pluralistic society, where some inequalities still remain, a program like the court challenges program is essential. A few minutes ago I was proud to hear my leader made a commitment on behalf of our party and say that a future Liberal government will not only reinstate the court challenges program, but will also increase available funding because this was a modest program with a huge demand on it. Increasing and improving its budget will surely be of help to minority communities and others, be they women's groups or parents of disabled children.
We are hopeful the government will come to accept the will of Parliament. When the Prime Minister was leader of the opposition he spoke often about the importance of the government respecting the will of Parliament. I hope we have a vote in the House that will encourage and call upon the government at one point to do the right thing. We have a bizarre situation where the government insists on abandoning a program that has in fact done a great deal of good.
This is an important debate and I am glad my colleagues have had a chance to speak to it. It is a debate that we will continue because in the election campaign Canadians will remember what action the government took with respect to minorities, including the minorities who I represent in my constituency.