Liberals set to relaunch controversial Court Challenges Program
The Liberal government is announcing a new version of the controversial Court Challenges Program, which was killed by the former Conservative government.
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould will give details about the new program at 1:15 p.m. ET today during a news conference in Ottawa, and CBCNews.ca will carry it live.
A spokesman for Joly said the new program will be “more efficient, and with an official languages component.”
The promise to restore the program, which was scrapped by the Stephen Harper Conservatives in 2006, was included in the 2015 Liberal campaign platform and the mandate letters for Joly and Wilson-Raybould.
The 2016 budget earmarked $12 million in new funding over five years, which would bring the annual program budget up to $5 million annually when combined with existing spending on ongoing cases that the Conservatives had committed to fund through completion.
The program, which dates back to 1978, helps pay for court cases that focus mostly on equality and language rights.
It was scrapped by former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government in 1992, then brought back two years later by former prime minister Jean Chretien’s Liberal government.
‘Effective, useful and efficient’
In a message in the CCP’s 2006-2007 annual report after the program was cancelled, board chair Guy Matte lamented on the job of presiding over the dismantling of a program that repeated evaluations, and that a majority of Canadians found to be “effective, useful and efficient.”
“The Court Challenges Program has spearheaded the ongoing clarification of language and equality rights,” he wrote. “Important victories achieved by various groups would never have occurred if not for the resources provided by the CCPC. It is not overly pretentious to assert that this program was instrumental in improving our country’s growth and fairness.”
Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/court-challenges-program-1.3970103?cmp=rss