Harper and the Court Challenges Program
The Court Challenges Program was cancelled by the Conservative government. This was a huge blow to all those in Canada who believe in fairness, equality, and language rights for French and English minorities.
The Canadian Constitution establishes important constitutional rights, including the rights of official language minority groups to education and government services in their primary language and the rights of everyone to equality without discrimination. However, these rights are empty unless the individuals and groups they are designed to protect can exercise and enforce them. The Court Challenges Program, by providing modest contributions to the cost of important test cases dealing with language and equality rights, has made these constitutional rights accessible to Canadians. Without this key Program, Canada’s constitutional rights are inaccessible to most of us. This is not fair!
This program supported many of the equality gains women have made through the Charter and the law including:
- the right to maternity leave benefits
- the right to have your children keep their mother’s last name rather than take on the name of the father (ridiculous but true!)
- the right to not have your sexual history discussed in a sexual assault case
- that “no means no” there is no such thing as implied consent, you cannot consent when you are afraid (even if you say yes – if you are afraid of violence to yourself, family members or loved ones it means no)
- that people with disabilities have a right to a translator to help them meet their medical needs
- that women have a right to legal aid when their children are being apprehended by the state