Health committee  I'd like to go back to what Mr. McCutcheon was saying about the court challenges program. We certainly found it to be a very valuable program that allowed groups such as ours to dialogue about important charter issues. In this case, I don't believe we're faced with a charter issue, but certainly its elimination has limited the voice that groups such as ours have in the Canadian courts.

Health committee  Certainly we would hope they would use science to decide what are the most appropriate risk factors to assess. It doesn't matter what government is in power. We certainly would be interested in participating in any amendment that occurs with the procedure.

Health committee  We weren't aware of it specifically. We are a very small organization. We have a very small staff. In our ability to research all the options out there, we do depend on feedback from our members and from the media to learn about things.

Health committee  Obviously the consultations would be based on health organizations. Egale, for instance, isn't a health organization. We do represent a population that gets discriminated against and is referenced in the risk criteria. We do dialogue also with Canadian Blood Services on the blood issue.

Health committee  We obviously prefer to dialogue in whatever manner is the most productive. So in this case, we would have preferred to have been involved in the discussion when Health Canada was drafting the policy. We made this criticism at other times. For instance, Statistics Canada produced a census questionnaire that also was fairly unfavourable toward the gay population.

Health committee  My name is Nigel Flear and I'm presenting on behalf of Egale Canada as the president. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with the committee today. For those of you who don't know, Egale Canada is Canada's only national organization that advances equality and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people and their families across the country.