:
Thank you very much for allowing my daughter and myself to appear before this committee.
I believe it's important for politicians to look into the faces of the people who are affected by the laws this country passes. That's why my family paid for my daughter to come down here. We've since found we may have a little bit of a refund, which is wonderful.
Unlike the other people who have given submissions before you, I'm not the head or representative of a group or organization that has been helped or is being helped by the court challenges of Canada program. I'm simply here as the father of a child, and not just any child; as you can see, I'm the parent of nine-year old Mary Rollason-MacAulay, a child who was born with multiple disabilities and medical issues, a child who's only alive today because of doctors and her own strong will to live. She's a child who has been helped by the court challenges of Canada program.
It is for that reason that both Mary and I have travelled all the way from Winnipeg to Ottawa on behalf of our family and all the families with children with disabilities to ask for your support in continuing to fund and keep in existence the court challenges of Canada program.
When I was denied the bulk of my parental leave benefits in 1998, I was forced to go back to work after only receiving four weeks of benefits through employment insurance. What the court challenges program enabled our family to do was to hire a lawyer to challenge the validity of the federal legislation under section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis of age, disability, and family status. The legislated changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act at that time resulted in the loss of the bulk of my parental leave at the time when it was most needed, when Mary came home from hospital.
Instead of receiving my fifteen weeks of benefits when my severely disabled child came home from hospital at ten and a half months of age, the new Employment Insurance Act limited me to taking that time within a year of her birth, resulting in the loss of eleven weeks of benefits. I had, on the advice of medical professionals, waited until Mary got home from the hospital to take my leave because that was when it was deemed to be when Mary would need it the most.
Our constitutional challenge against the employment insurance program was successful, but without the help of funding from the court challenges program, our constitutional challenge against the act would most likely not have been successful. We not only were successful in our challenge on all three grounds of discrimination, but just as important, as a result of the challenge being launched the federal government of the day amended the act prior to the hearing.
Last September, in announcing the plan to slash $1 billion from the federal budget, of which cutting the court challenges program represented $5.6 million of the savings, Treasury Board President John Baird was quoted in the media as saying the program wasn't meeting the priorities of Canadians or providing value for money. As well, in talking specifically about the court challenges program, Mr. Baird said the federal government was no longer interested in funding opposition to legislation it believes is right.
I ask all of you to look at Mary and along with her all of the Marys with disabilities across the country, whether they are children or adults, and I ask you to ask yourselves whether her constitutional rights aren't meeting the priorities of Canadians, whether fighting the discrimination against Mary and others with disabilities is not providing value for money, and above all, whether any of you really believe that there will never be a future law passed that will not discriminate against Mary and others with disabilities across the country.
With our family's situation, it didn't matter that our situation and arguments actually persuaded the federal government to change the law to cover people like us before we had our day in court. Even after the government amended the legislation, because it wasn't retroactive, it still continued to fight our challenge to the very end. That's why Canadians needs the court challenges program.
Do I really think the federal government purposely meant to discriminate against newborns with disabilities? No. Do I think the federal government purposely changed the law to discriminate against newborns with disabilities? No. But do I think it's extremely hard for politicians and bureaucrats to know all of the ramifications that may come from their decisions to amend or create laws? Yes. As the umpire who heard our case said in his decision, and I quote:
[The commission]...by oversight or otherwise, strayed from its legislative objectives. This, in the circumstances, is not surprising. Legislating in the area of social legislation is both difficult and challenging. Court challenges multiply; pressure groups and social changes place considerable pressure and strain not only on Government but also upon Senior Public Servants who struggle to keep abreast of all developments.
It's not wrong for politicians and bureaucrats to admit mistakes and infringements on constitutional rights. Unfortunately, in our case the government never did admit that what they did was wrong, thus forcing us to proceed with the challenge. What is wrong is not to allow individual Canadians who have had their rights infringed to be able to make and mount a reasonable and meaningful constitutional challenge in a court. That's especially so when many of us are individuals who are still living with the discrimination. We are trying to fight for our constitutional rights, while still carrying on with our lives.
Mary's needs did not end the day she was released from hospital when she was ten and a half months old. They didn't end when she turned two, and they certainly haven't ended now.
If I'd had to continue the constitutional challenge by myself without the lawyer that I was able to hire through funding by the court challenges program, every minute, every day, every week that I would have had to spend to mount that challenge would have been time taken away from my daughter and our fight, literally, to keep her alive. The court challenges program put me on equal footing with the federal government. Whether I was with a lawyer or not, the federal government had a team of lawyers fighting against me, bringing to bear the full resources of the state. What individual without legal training could possibly have made a meaningful defence of the issue?
Even with a lawyer, the legal battles waged so long, as many do. Mary was in elementary school, enrolled in grade one, when the decision was finally made that the government's employment insurance program had discriminated against my daughter and me through her disability. But the length of the legal battle didn't bother us, because it was never our sole purpose to fight for just our family's rights. As we have discovered during our nine years of being intimately involved with disability issues, when an issue affects one person, there are many more who are also affected.
In our family, Mary and I were not the only ones affected by the employment insurance decision. Because I could not be home but had to work, it meant my wife actually bore the brunt of the EI decision. At that time, Mary was connected by a tube to a feeding machine 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there were numerous times during the day when she could have aspirated into her lungs and she could have died. My wife and I were taught how to do CPR and were given a portable suction machine. Mary could not be left alone any minute of the day or night. Someone had to be awake with her 24 hours a day. Our eventual success and our eventual repayment to compensate me for the benefits lost was still put to good use earlier this year when Mary required more open-heart surgery in Toronto and my wife and I were off work for 11 weeks.
From where we sit, we believe the court challenges program has become a political football, subject to the ideological whims of the political party in government, but the rights of Canadians can be infringed no matter which party is in power. It was actually a Liberal government that changed the unemployment insurance law that had caused my family to be discriminated against. It could just as easily have been a Conservative government, an NDP government, or a motion originated by the Bloc Québécois. To put it bluntly, discrimination can originate anywhere in the political spectrum.
In our situation, we were fighting for 11 weeks of parental leave. In terms of benefits, I lost about $6,000. On an individual basis, it would have made no sense for us to pay a lawyer more than $70,000 to fight the discrimination, unless we were independently wealthy or crazy, and I can assure you we are neither. But as with many other issues of disability, we knew there were other Marys out there, children who were born with such potentially fatal medical problems that their parents should have the right to choose whether they use the benefits while the child is still in hospital or at home. That's the beauty of the court challenges program: they only take on constitutional challenges that can affect many people across the land. As the umpire who decided our case, who didn't know we had funding through the court challenges program, said:
[Rollason] brought a deficiency to the attention of Parliament which, while it has since been remedied, he should not have to bear the costs of doing so in order to obtain the benefits to which he was entitled.
Unless this program is reinstated and retained, constitutional challenges will be something only the richest in society can afford. That's wrong. Discrimination cuts across all classes and incomes. I never would have dreamt I'd ever have my rights infringed upon. Our family simply became the victim of discrimination because a child was born and she had disabilities. It's sad to know that the future parents of a disabled child, or anybody with disabilities, may not have the court challenges program to turn to unless you help keep it. Like me, other Canadians could only be the birth of a child away from discrimination. Don't take away the federal program that helped us and all the Canadians who are in our situation, both myself and my daughter Mary and my family.
Thank you for your time and your attention.
I'm assuming you might have copies. There's also a brief from my wife, Gail MacAulay, that should be part of your package. I'd urge you all to read it. It's from mummy's point of view, and she's pretty straight to the point as to just what the brunt was that she faced when I was away.
Thank you.
:
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
My name is Louise Aucoin and I am the President of the Federation of Associations of French-speaking Jurists of common law, the FAFSJC.
I thank this committee for its invitation to speak to you about the Court Challenges Program of Canada.
The FAFSJC includes seven associations of French-speaking jurists and represents approximately 1,200 jurists. The FAFSJC promotes and defends the language rights of francophone minorities in the area of Canadian justice. The FAFSJC is also a member of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, the FCFA.
Firstly, the FAFSJC wishes to make clear that it fully supports the statements made in the written submission tabled last week by the FCFA, and in particular those made on the decisive role that the CCP plays in fostering the development of francophone minorities as well as the full recognition and promotion of the French language in Canadian society. In fact, access to justice in French and judicial bilingualism has progressed significantly, thanks to court challenges supported by the CCP, such as the Beaulac and Donnie Doucet cases. By abolishing CCP funding, we run the risk of stagnating, at best, or losing ground in the area of language rights, at worse. This does not augur well for part VII of the Official Languages Act nor for improving access to justice in French outside Quebec.
The FAFSJC is deeply concerned over the impact abolishing funding will have on the ability of francophone and Acadian communities to defend their constitutional rights. In fact, we are already hearing about certain francophone groups and individuals who no longer have the means to defend their language rights before the courts. Their situation can be summarized as follows: no funding means no access, means no defence of language rights, and less progress made in their respective fields. In fact, the FAFSJC has already fallen victim to the situation, because for financial reasons, we will be unable to even think about intervening in the Paulin case, which will probably be brought before the Supreme Court of Canada in 2007. The case deals with the role of the RCMP in New Brunswick and will most likely lead to discussion on the RCMP's role throughout Canada.
Abolishing the Court Challenges Program also diminishes the benefits of Canadian citizenship, particularly for linguistic minorities in Canada. Why? Because a francophone who chooses to live in a province where he will be a minority may be forced to pay out-of-pocket in order to make sure that his constitutional language rights are respected. In fact, this is already costing many people hundreds of thousands of dollars. A minority francophone may have language rights, on condition that he is willing to pay to have them respected, which may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or whatever it costs to have his case heard before the courts.
In addition to giving preference to Quebec francophone groups, these measures do nothing to foster respect for francophone language rights throughout the entire country. On the contrary, the elimination of CCP funding is giving francophone minorities the following message: it's your language, it's your problem, if you want your language rights to be protected you will have to pay for it. The issue is not considered a matter of public interest which is deserving of federal funding.
While the abolition of CCP funding means that some groups or individuals will not be receiving funds, the FAFSJC endorses broadening the mandate of the CCP so long as this action is not detrimental to the disadvantaged and linguistic minorities, as Mr. Rollason said so eloquently. However, it is not by abolishing the disadvantaged and linguistic minorities' access to justice that such a debate will be held.
If abolishing CCP funding is based on the principle that the federal government should not contribute to lawsuits brought against itself, then the tax system, among other things, should also be reformed. For example, the media can claim business expenses and thus reduce their taxes in constitutional cases against the federal government. Therefore, if the federal government is already indirectly subsidizing the protection of the constitutional rights of certain corporations through the tax system, why shouldn't the government also assist Canadian citizens, including francophone minorities, to protect their rights?
The FAFSJC does not believe that the benefits of Canadian citizenship should accrue exclusively to the well-off and to francophone and anglophone majorities.
Thank you. I would be pleased to answer your questions.
:
My name is Chantal Tie. Thank you very much for inviting me here today. I am here as a representative of LEAF, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund. We have historically been a significant beneficiary of the court challenges funds.
I sat for seven years on the national legal committee of LEAF, which determines the litigation, applies for funding, and determines the litigation strategy. I was then nominated by LEAF to run for the board of directors of the court challenges program. I took a leave from the national legal committee and served for seven years on the board of the court challenges program, four of those years as chairman of the board. I am the most recent past chair of the board of directors of the court challenges program, and I am now recently back on the national legal committee of LEAF.
I appeared before House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights about two weeks ago, following a presentation by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on the court challenges program, and was astonished to hear that group say that eliminating the court challenges program was promoting equality because it levelled the playing field. I'd like to address my comments to that comment, which I must say astounded me.
It astounded me for a number of reasons. Primarily, in essence, it's equality with a vengeance, as the Supreme Court of Canada has said on occasion. It also presumes that treating everyone the same is what equality is all about. That is, quite frankly, an outdated notion, and one that was prevalent in the 1960s. It is a thinking that takes us back forty years, in complete ignorance of the developments in human rights and equality legislation in the past forty years. It is a vision of equality that says that when you treat everyone the same, that's all you need to do. Treating everyone the same is called “formal equality”. Unfortunately, everyone is not similarly situated. One must look at the impact of the decisions upon affected people.
That statement by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which seemed to find favour with government representatives, left me with two possible conclusions. Either those members who supported that decision or that approach clearly have no understanding of what equality is and have no knowledge of development in equality jurisprudence and thinking in the last forty years, or they do understand the difference and have deliberately engaged in doublespeak to confuse the issues that are before us and, in effect, merely disagree with the vision.
What is the vision? The vision is not some invention of LEAF or the court challenges program, although we do admit that we may have contributed toward the building of that vision. It is the vision that the Supreme Court of Canada has said our charter, which is the law of this land, mandates. It is a substantive equality. If you apply that vision to the elimination of this program, it cannot be justified under any definition of equality.
What does this program do? I think Mr. Rollason's comments were very apt. He thought it was important to show you the face of someone who has benefited from the court challenges program. The court challenges program brings the faces and the voices of disenfranchised, marginalized, and discriminated-against people in this country before the court. Unfortunately, judges labour under the same handicap that parliamentarians may labour under as well, and that is that they do not have the lived experience of disadvantage that needs to come before the courts when the courts are adjudicating rights under the charter.
It is absolutely essential that those voices be heard, and the court challenges program provides extremely modest funding to groups who are identified as disadvantaged in our charter, so that their voices can be heard. Without their voices, we will have a thin and impoverished view of equality. Unfortunately, we may end up with a view of equality from back in the 1960s that says that treating everyone the same is equality.
It's also extremely important that the current structure, or a structure very similar to the current structure of the court challenges program, be maintained. That structure gives the disadvantaged groups themselves significant say in the priorities and the direction and allocation of funds, on a test-case basis, to litigation.
People who suffer disadvantage must play an important and active role in remedying that disadvantage. Eliminating funding to the program does none of those things. It silences voices; it makes our Supreme Court a bastion of the rich and the privileged, not a defender of the rights of the disadvantaged.
That's not what our charter says. Our charter says that we are to have those rights. If we have no access to the courts, we will not enjoy any of those rights.
Thank you.
I just want to say that I'm a supporter of the program. I would like to make that statement at the beginning.
It's my understanding that the impetus for the creation of the program in 1983 or 1982 was to give official language minorities in Canada the power to ensure that their rights, as clearly stated in the charter, would be respected.
As a Liberal, I believe.... I guess the only point of ideology I have is that no institution is perfect. By definition, I will never accept that an institution is perfect and can't be reformed and made better to adapt to the changing times or whatever.
My question, I guess, revolves around some of the criticisms of the program, namely that some of its decisions may be arbitrary, that certain people's applications are rejected while others are accepted. I don't have a real strong opinion on that, but do you believe, Ms. Tie, that there's any way the program could be improved? I'm not at all in favour of abolishing it; I'm in favour of improving it. Do you see any need for reform?
For example, and it's been brought up before, there is this idea that there might be some kind of revolving door. I don't know. That's why we're having the program officials come. I commend Mr. Bélanger for making that request. There might be a revolving door between the board and some of the groups that benefit from the program. You, yourself, have gone from one to the other. Perhaps we should have a board that is made up of former justices, as we do with immigration judges, where we have people who are members of the Order of Canada who bring a certain impartiality.
Do you acknowledge any of the criticisms of the program, that perhaps in some cases the program has a bias or that its decisions have been arbitrary? In other words, can you step out of your particular interests and see a need for some kind of reform?
:
Mr. Chairman, we come before you today to raise our concerns about a government decision whose consequences are so disturbing, that we find it hard to believe that the decision-makers gave any serious thought to its impact before making it.
The Harper government decision to abolish the Court Challenges Program has a direct negative impact on Canada's linguistic duality, a direct impact on the assimilation of minority francophones and, assuredly, over time, an impact on national unity.
It would be irresponsible and foolish to believe that the Government of Canada can disrespect linguistic minorities in such a way without undermining the very foundation of this country. The media tells us that this brilliant idea is owed to Prime Minister Harper's chief of staff. If this is true, what we have before us is a government of ideologues, not to say demagogues. Such a state of affairs is extremely troubling to Canadians.
Narrow-minded ideology, unrestrained demagogy, have never contributed to building today's Canada, and in fact are the ideal recipe for its eventual dissolution. We are told that this demagogy is taken from a certain text published by the said chief of staff of the Prime Minister, a book in which he maintains that it is ridiculous for the government to give money to those Canadians who want to bring it to court. Such warped logic is such a distortion of reality that it is scary.
First of all, when a minority decides to bring the government before the courts, it does so because it is convinced that this government is breaking the law, usually the Constitution of Canada or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This means that the direct effect of the Harper government's action is to give itself the power to break the Constitution of the country without anybody being able to contest it legally, the financial burden being too great.
[English]
Second, when a minority decides to seek the help of the courts it is always as a solution of last resort, which means it has tried to make the government understand through every other legitimate means.
Third, if by chance a minority manages to raise enough money to dare go before the courts, the government defends itself with our money. How many millions did Ontario taxpayers pay to cover the Harris government's legal costs, and all this to bite the dust miserably twice?
The Franco-Ontarian community and the Montfort Hospital did not waste taxpayers' money in legal costs. We upheld the law of the land. But the Harris government did exactly that, and any government in the country will do precisely the same thing without any hesitation or obstacle the next time it happens.
[Translation]
What the Harper government is asking us to accept, however, exceeds in its deceit what any other government may have done in the past. They are telling Canadians that they have a monopoly on all power, on all truth, and on all rights. Let ordinary people fend for themselves.
This is not just a matter of cutting expenses. The Harper government is depriving the most vulnerable in our society of access to justice system. The forsaken of society are beaten down even lower in the social order. This is not the Canadian way to do things. It is not just shameful, it is a scandal. It goes against everything Canadians believe in, starting with access to justice for all.
I cannot remain silent on the role played by Treasury Board President, Mr. John Baird, in this affair. If anybody should know the impact, not to say the illegality, of depriving the francophone minority of such an essential tool, it must be him. He happened to be the Minister of Francophone Affairs in Ontario, in the Mike Harris government, during the worst days of the Montfort crisis. In addition, it was only at the very end of this five-year struggle that he finally sided with the Franco-Ontarian minority.
Allow us to doubt his sincerity, then and now. I will tell you about an exchange I had with Mr. Baird back then. I have never spoken about it publicly before. And I regret having to do so today, but he leaves me no choice.
The day before the Harris government was to announce it would not seek leave to appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada, Mr. Baird called me at home. During that brief conversation he kept saying "Gisèle, we have to turn the page" on the events of the previous five years. He repeated that phrase several times. The action he took today as President of the Treasury Board shows that he turned the page, but he certainly does not have the same book I have. The only conclusion we can draw from Mr. Baird's actions is that if he can't get the francophone minority one way, he will find another way to do so. There are many ways to kill a people!
It would be rather surprising to learn that this decision was imposed on Mr. Baird, judging by the ferocious defence he mounted for it in the House of Commons. The most deplorable aspect of his involvement is that once again, he is part of a government that seeks to score points with the electorate by attacking the most vulnerable in our society.
I dare say, however, that his government has radically misread the Canadian electorate. This is particularly true of Quebec voters. We suspect strongly that, in its cold calculations, the Harper government concluded that francophone Quebeckers would not oppose his decision since the Court Challenges Program protects its anglophone minority.
But Quebeckers see clearly. They understood right away that the real targets of this decision were their minority francophone brothers and sisters. And, as they rose thunderously to support Montfort, they will not forget this further injustice when the time comes to settle the score.
One thing is sure. We Franco-Ontarians will not let them forget it. We will work relentlessly in every riding, including Quebec, where the vote of francophones can make a difference. We will ask them to reject the government whose indifference is but veiled intolerance. An intolerance against the weakest. Mr. Harper governs by one rule only: might makes right. This requires no courage.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, we came to share the indignation of minority francophones in the face of this government's decision. We fully intend to fight this decision by all legitimate means possible. We ask that you wage this battle with us, and continue to speak out as eloquently as you have done in the House of Commons. We ask that you sensitize your voters to the true consequences of the Harper government decision, and that you do so until voting day.
Let me say a few words to those members of the party in power. Most of you, if not all of you, were probably not consulted by your government on this measure. We thank you for consulting us today.
We remind you that you are not powerless in this matter. You have influence within your caucus. And when the government is in the wrong, it is your duty, behind closed doors, to bring it back on course.
We hope that you will understand the true extent of the damage done to the francophone minority and to your own party, and that you will act in the best interest of linguistic duality, in the best interest of all Canadians and in accordance with Canada's Constitution.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
:
Monsieur le président, I'll speak English in my presentation, because I want to make sure everybody can understand directly the message I'm bringing to you today and not with the aid of interpretation.
The reality is that when you are a member of a minority you need to have recourse to the courts because the protectors of minorities are not the majority. It's not because they're acting in bad faith; it's because they don't understand the needs of the minority. For the last two hundred years, minorities have had to have recourse to the courts to make sure their interests were protected. One of the courts' main responsibilities is protecting minorities. To have access to the courts, especially in issues of constitutional law, you need to have a lawyer.
What's special or different about linguistic rights is that the people who are going to court to have those rights defended usually have a very small personal interest. It's a community right. When they bring that right forward, they do not get any money in return. All they get is the respect of a right, which is why when they need to get access as the only way to get their rights respected, they have to proceed by way of the courts and they need to get financial assistance.
The reality is that when you're dealing with linguistic rights, the consequence of people not coming forward to make sure their rights are respected affects everyone in Canada. It's important to understand what a minority does and how a minority lives. The reason minorities go to court to have their linguistic rights protected is that when you're a member of a linguistic minority, especially the francophone minority outside of Quebec, every time you wake up in the morning you decide you're going to continue making efforts to live in French that day, but when you stop making those efforts that's when you have assimilation. Assimilation of francophones is simply francophones who stop making the efforts they have to make to continue living in French. It's an essential characteristic of Canada that linguistic minorities throughout the country be able to continue living in one of the two official languages.
When members of the linguistic minority--and they can be in Prince Edward Island, Vancouver, Kapuskasing, Sudbury, North Bay, Windsor--go before the courts they're saying there's a government decision or a law telling us we should not be making the effort to continue living in French. That's why we go before the courts. When that law or decision continues to stand, every day members of the francophone minority stop living in French. The result is we have weaker and weaker linguistic minorities throughout Canada.
The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that linguistic minorities are an essential feature of Canada, that the survival of linguistic minorities in Canada is essential to the survival of Canada as a country. When the court challenges program is cut what they cut is the access to the judicial system of very ordinary people to have those rights respected. The consequence--and it's a direct consequence of having cut the court challenges program--is that the assimilation rate of francophones throughout Canada outside of Quebec is going to increase. That is an irreparable harm to the community. It's an irreparable harm to the country. That's why the court challenges program is essential for Canada and must be reinstated.
Thank you.
:
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Gisèle St-Amand and I'm the Director General of the Commission scolaire de langue française de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard. I have been working in education for 43 years, including 20 years as director general or as a senior administrator.
I am telling you what I do because I want you to know that I'm not here as a lawyer or a journalist or as a political partisan but rather as a francophone who currently lives in a minority community and who spent 20 years in Quebec. My two children are anglophones entitled to English-language education in Quebec and francophones entitled to French-language education in the rest of Canada.
So, I am here to plead in favour of restoring the Court Challenges Program, because the battle is not over, not all the goods in section 23 of the Charter have been delivered, and I am not the first to tell you this.
I want to thank you very much for allowing me to speak. Initially, I sent a brief, which I am certainly not going to read or repeat. I think that you received it, because I was told that it would be translated into English.
I am here today because, as an educator, my mission is always the same, it is to build a better world. That is why I am here today.
I benefited from all the epic battles waged to obtain the right, pleasure and joy of speaking French and of sharing the same pleasure and joy with my children. Consequently, I am working to ensure that all other children of francophones with French-language education rights will have this right.
Too much energy has been deployed and work done to remain quiet today, to not accept an invitation to come and tell you just how much we condemn what the government has done by taking away our means of going before the courts. Not everyone has this right: this right belongs to those with money. That is why this funding program allowed everyone to be treated like everyone else.
I have come here to plead on my own behalf, naturally, but let me say it from the start, I have come here to talk to you about the children of Prince Edward Island, the children who are now in school.
You are sitting on very comfortable chairs. I have students in Prince Edward Island today who don't have the same comfortable chairs we do, who didn't have a comfortable school bus this morning and who today don't have a comfortable school in the generally recognized sense.
For example, there is a school—and we have already filed a statement of claim with the lower courts to ensure that the Government of Prince Edward Island will respect our constitutional rights—that is located in a building along with a bar.
You will see in my brief that on Thursday and Friday evenings people start coming to the bar around 3:00 p.m. So, the following morning, when I arrive at school with my children, the building does not smell like a school. There are cigarette butts in front of the building that also don't belong to the school children.
So, I am making my case on behalf of the Arsenault-Cameron decision, for example, which stated that the francophone minority in Prince Edward Island was entitled to three inalienable and non-negotiable things: a high-quality education, equality of education and management for and by francophones.
I just told you about a school where we do not have the right to hire a caretaker. I just told you about a school we do not have the right to use in the evening without first making a reservation, and ensuring that no one else is using the building, before we can use it. We do not have a voice, nor the right to make decisions, nor certainly a veto right, in that school.
We have already filed a statement of claim before the court; we want the same rights in that school as those applicable to majority schools in Prince Edward Island.
I want to take a few more minutes to tell you about our funding, in Prince Edward Island. The Commission scolaire de langue française de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard, my current employer, is responsible for an area that goes from east to West.
We rise with the sun and we go to bed under the same star in the evening. As a result, at the Commission scolaire de langue française de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard, all our schools are quite distant from one another. I have come to tell you today that our funding does not and will not allow us, no matter how creative we are, to provide the high-quality education mentioned in the Arsenault-Cameron decision.
For the students of Prince Edward Island, I want—and I think the government of my country, a country I am extremely proud of—wants the same thing: an education equivalent to that received by the majority. I can tell you right away that three of our six schools in Prince Edward Island were won because we were able to fight thanks to the Court Challenges Program. You should also know that, without that assistance, I fear that charter rights will be a thing of the past for some francophone communities in Prince Edward Island. We don't have the means to go before the courts, because our funding is public, meaning that a school board is funded by the government.
In conclusion, we have parents who were prepared to go before the courts to ensure that their constitutional rights were respected. These parents, who live in Rustico, on the north shore of Prince Edward Island, truly hoped to see their constitutional rights respected, to ensure that they could give their children what you give yours.
The Commission scolaire de langue française de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard, although it sits at the same table as the two English school boards in Prince Edward Island, receives funding calculated according to the formula for the majority, meaning that none—and I repeat none—of the realities our school board faces are taken into consideration during the funding allocation. So there are a lot of services that anglophone students receive that we cannot provide our students. So, put yourself in the shoes of these children's parents: if you had the choice, which school would you send your kids to?
Like my colleagues who preceded me said, I fear that we cannot provide the quality mentioned in the Arsenault-Cameron decision, or the equivalency mentioned by Judge McQuaid, speaking for the P.E.I. Superior Court, when he said that an educational system of lower quality than that made available to the majority would be incompatible with the tenor of section 23. A judge of the P.E.I. Superior Court said that. I have no idea what political party he supports. I ask you to believe that I have come here as an educator, purely and simply to defend the future of francophone children on Prince Edward Island.
It is often said—and I always like hearing this—that Canada is the world's conscience. Each time I hear that, I feel proud. I must immediately tell you that we are suffering from a crisis of conscience and that we must examine our conscience in Canada. I am pleading my case before the government members here. I want the program that used to exist to be restored or I want the program to exist in another form. However, I beg you, on behalf of the children and the francophones of Prince Edward Island, give us the chance to go before the courts each time—and it happens often—our constitutional rights are not respected.
Our country, the Canada of tomorrow, will resemble the children we raise. Let's raise the best children. Let's raise children who are entitled to a strong, proud Canada, filled with the values that I instilled in my children, in other words, a Canada that is open and that respects all groups, as they are, no matter who they are.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
:
Thank you, and good afternoon.
I'm Marcus Tabachnick, president of the Quebec English School Boards Association. I'm accompanied by David Birnbaum, who is our executive director.
Mr. Chairman, members of the standing committee, the Quebec English School Boards Association thanks you for this opportunity to present its views in support of the reinstatement of the court challenges program of Canada.
Our association is the public voice of Quebec's nine English school boards serving some 115,000 students across the province. The English public school network of Quebec offers a portrait of Canada's English-speaking minority community in all its diversity. There are one-room school houses on Entry Island on the Îles de la Madeleine and in Vaudreuil, just 45 minutes from Montreal; big-city high schools; regional adult education centres; and every variation in between. For many of our students the daily trip to an English school is an hour and a half each morning. There are big challenges, but I would tell you that our system is addressing them with ingenuity and determination. It was in our schools that French immersion was born and perfected. Today, we pride ourselves on producing graduates who are building their futures in Canada's two official languages.
[Translation]
Our schools, like those of francophone communities in the rest of Canada, are the glue that holds our minority-language communities together. Of the 340 schools in our system, more than half serve 200 students or less. The future of those schools and the future of the minority-language communities they serve is inextricably linked. Consequently, our school network, and our association which speaks for it, are vitally concerned by the subject before the committee today. That is because there is also a link that connects us to the future of the Court Challenges Program.
[English]
QESBA represents a universally elected level of government, the only level of government that answers directly and exclusively to the members of Canada's English-speaking minority community. This level of government, elected school boards, has the right to control and manage schools serving the minority-language community of Quebec. School boards exercise that right by virtue of decisions rendered in landmark cases made possible by the court challenges program of Canada. The right of students to attend minority-language schools is also a question that the court challenges program was created to help answer.
In Quebec, access is limited by the charter of the French language but nevertheless protected within those limits under section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If individuals are to test the extent of those constitutional protections against the formidable resources of government, they must have the right to do so. The court challenges program is a meaningful and reasonable way to ensure that right. The charter, at section 24(1) says:
Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.
For many individuals and communities in Canada, that recourse is only real if financial support is made available. For many individuals and communities, that resource will only be available if the court challenges program is reinstated.
[Translation]
Subsection 24(1) of the charter states:
24(1) Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances.
[English]
Rights evolve. Circumstances affecting minorities change. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms must be tested by those changing circumstances if its full breadth is to be clear and meaningful to all Canadians.
In the seminal Mahe case on the extent of control and management of schooling afforded to minority-language communities in Canada, the Supreme Court said that continued recourse to the courts would likely be required if the application of the charter was to be fully effective and equitable. The judgment said:
...imposing a specific form of educational system in the multitude of different circumstances which exist across Canada would be unrealistic and self-defeating.
The same judgment continues: “Section 23 is a new type of legal right in Canada, and thus requires new responses from the courts.”
The future of the court challenges program has been falsely framed in some quarters as a question about special interests, as an infringement upon the supremacy of Parliament, as a cash cow for big-city lawyers. Those suggestions, as facile as they are disingenuous, were pretty much summed up by a senior member of the current cabinet. In defending the cancellation of the program, he was quoted as saying: “I just don't think it makes sense for the government to subsidize lawyers to challenge the government's own laws in court.”
It is often said that a democratic society is rightly judged by how it treats its minorities. These are not partisan questions about challenging the government of the day; they are matters that go to the heart of who we are and how we define the fundamental rights and freedoms that unite us. The court challenges program isn't about subsidizing lawyers; it's about ensuring equality before the law and guaranteeing equality of access to the law.
[Translation]
Quebeckers, whatever language they speak, are perhaps particularly exposed and sensitive to minority-language matters.
[English]
Consequently, the cancellation of the court challenges program has been greeted by much opposition in my home province. The chief editorialist of La Presse newspaper, in Montreal, noted:
[Translation]
Without the government's financial assistance, which groups or persons will be in a position to spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to pursue a case right up to the Supreme Court? Given the unlimited government resources, citizens who believe that their rights have been violated will feel helpless. Consequently, what is the value of a charter of rights if citizens do not have the means to ensure that it is upheld?
[English]
Are there questions relating to the operations and procedures of the court challenges program that legitimately warrant additional scrutiny? Quite possibly. It is not for QESBA to judge, but as Monsieur Pratte concluded: “Ottawa has decided to cure the cold by killing the patient!”
That's a pretty dismissive way for our national government to discharge its solemn role as custodian of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
For the English-speaking parent in the Gaspé, for the English school board member in the Saguenay, not to mention a francophone community leader in Alberta, this program is their doorway to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that charter remains the penultimate guarantor of their future.
The Quebec English School Board Association calls upon this committee and this government to do the right thing. We call upon you to reinstate the court challenges program.
Thank you.
:
Mr. Bélanger, I believe that, in fact, the federal government does not have power over everything. The provincial governments have power over some things. Minorities need, above all, social services, education and health care services.
The federal government can be the best government in the world, and yet have a provincial government that fails to respect the francophones in its province, as in our case.
As a result, we are waiting for the federal government to help us, first, because it is responsible for minorities, particularly the Senate, through the Court Challenges Program. We also expect the government to try mediation or correspondence of some kind through an exchange of letters with people in the province in question.
I think that the current federal government under Mr. Harper takes it for granted that everyone will act like it and will always be careful not to wrong the minority. However, we are seeing the opposite happen. In fact, there are not enough French schools in Prince Edward Island and Alberta. We do not even have benches, there is nothing. The situation was discussed the other day on a Radio Canada broadcast. What is happening there makes no sense. The Government of Alberta is responsible for the situation. The federal government has the responsibility to point to the situation and to help it. If the provincial government does not respond, at the very least, those who oppose this government must be helped.
I do not want to hear that it is their money; it is really our money. And the money they spend is also our money. It is illogical to say that, because, when you fight the central government, its representatives arrive with a whole bunch of lawyers.
[English]
They don't have only one lawyer; they come with three or four or five lawyers when they come to court, and they have lots of money. We had 12 lawyers who really work together, and we chose Mr. Caza here to defend our cause. We didn't have all of the money to pay him, but this program helped us.
We cannot think of another cause. We are in the capital of Canada. In Ontario we have the greatest majority of francophones outside Quebec; we have half of this group in the region of Ottawa, and we were lucky to get some money out of those people--but it's not everyone: there's one in Penetanguishene right now, and they don't have any money. They have won in court, but still the government--this is the Government of Canada, by the way, the Department of Industry--doesn't give them the money they need. They never had a project for the francophones over there.
These injustices are created sometimes by the federal government, but most of the time by the provincial governments. We need to have help. This is your responsibility. This is your role.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome.
As did we, you noted that the Conservative government abolished the Canada Volunteerism Initiative. It amended the Women's Program to prevent the funding of advocacy rights groups and lobby groups. Furthermore, it abolished the Court Challenges Program.
In our opinion, ideology is pushing us into a world where, socially, culturally and economically, Darwinism prevails.
Does this not concern you?
I am asking this question because I fear that the Conservative government will not restore this program, unless the government does something in the future to contradict us.
That said, what do you intend to do?