Justice committee  Good morning. Since 2009, after the abolition of the court challenges program and the creation of the language rights support program in 2009, we have had 125 requests for litigation support, and 85 of them were accepted. That speaks to the continued need, on the side of languag

Justice committee  Equality rights.

Justice committee  The 85 cases funded since 2009 were on the language side only. In your deck, I think you have the data on the number of cases funded through the court challenges program since [Inaudible--Editor].

Justice committee  For the issue to be addressed by the language rights support program or the future court challenges program, it would have to be argued that the bilingualism of justices sitting on the Supreme Court bench is part of having access to your preferred judge on the Supreme Court as pa

Justice committee  In fact, both programs have had this promotion element. It's as much a promotion of the program itself: what help the program can bring to groups or individuals seeking redress of their rights. It's also a promotion of the rights themselves. The new program, the language rights s

Justice committee  If I may add something, often it's a group that will go to court. They are a group; they have resources; they have a board and they can make decisions, but, ultimately, the decisions that they gain from the courts are applicable to individuals. In the language rights world, a si

Justice committee  We have had experience with the language rights support program that was created after the elimination of the CCP back in 2006. The CCP cap for a litigation for the first court was $60,000. When we started the LRSP we put that cap at $85,000. After one year the panel of experts r

Justice committee  In the case of the language rights support program, which has taken a page from their old program, it has to be a constitutional right listed in the contribution agreement that we have with the program. In the case of languages it's your constitutional right to education; the rig

Justice committee  The short answer to that is this is a program run by a third party. It was and it still is. We have a contribution agreement that is fairly detailed, but we don't go into that level of detail. If the case is accepted, the program extends the limit that has been discussed—$125,000

Justice committee  It is one that has been funded, and it is a settled case. For the program to be involved in a way, one would have to find a new angle to bring to the courts. It would have to be decided that yes, it falls within the constitutional rights that have not yet been clarified. Caron w

Justice committee  I know that Michel is eager to respond to that. In fact, that Caron case was applicable to Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories, and in fact, to parts of Manitoba and even parts of other provinces that were at one time part of the Northwest Territories, which ne

Justice committee  We do not prioritize those cases. It's done independently by a panel of experts. If you want to, you're welcome to invite the language rights support program's administration to answer those questions more directly. The idea is that we have a panel of experts who will decide the

Justice committee  In the case of the language rights support program—and there are differences between the way the CCP was run and the way the language rights support program is run—the panel is composed of four lawyers who have experience and knowledge of language rights issues, one expert in ADR

Justice committee  In the case of the language rights support program, the applications that were not funded might very well have been so because the panel chose the best cases that they had in front of them, and some cases had to be left out because of the lack of financial resources.

Justice committee  They do. If they are receivable, if they address a right that is covered by the program, they are examined, and the best ones are chosen.