Premier's propaganda in favour of Court Challenges Program

"You know when you start taking away funding from minority groups just because ..."

How do you be polite discussing the mentality and fanatical ideology of someone who treats the taxpayer funding of anybody as the normative baseline for moral behaviour, let alone the kind of anti-family socialist zealots of the Court Challenges Program?

"... that means you're saying, 'We're not going to give you any money if we've done something wrong to allow you to sue us.'"

And his caricature of cutting the funding to this anti-liberty, anti-equality cabal is stunning, coming from the lips of a self-professed adult.

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Edmonton Journal - Oct. 1, 2006
Harper's cuts will diminish independent voices, dissenting views
This self-styled champion of grassroots democracy dislikes being challenged
By Sheila Pratt

It took a straight-shooter like Newfoundland premier Danny Williams to sound the wake-up call last week. When the Harper government axed a longtime legal aid program, the Court Challenges Program, Williams said this wasn't just ordinary fiscal conservatism, this was crossing a new line. "In my opinion it shows the difference between Conservatives: true right-wing Conservatives and Progressive Conservatives," said Williams, a lawyer and firmly in the latter camp. "You know when you start taking away funding from minority groups just because you're going to sue the government that means you're saying, 'We're not going to give you any money if we've done something wrong to allow you to sue us.'" ...

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This is the real Court Challenges Program:

UNITED MOTHERS, FATHERS & FRIENDSNEWSLETTER
September 29, 2006
We are pleased to bring you this special in depth anti-corruption report.
Court Challenges Program Axed!An End to Tax Payer Funded Advocacy
I) What is the Court Challenges Program (CCP)?
II) Legacy of the CCP
III) Its Radical History
IV) An Unaccountable Biased Program
V) Take Action: Send Your 1 Click Letter in support of Ending the Court Challenges Program

PLEASE PRINT or FORWARD THIS NEWSLETTER ALONG TO OTHERS

“Millions of taxpayers’ dollars have gone to hundreds of legal challenges in the courts. Who has benefited from this program? Certainly not the disadvantaged or the poor for whom the fund was intended. Instead, the Program funds have mainly gone to interlocking feminist/homos_xual organizations who also control the Program.” http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/2003_july_aug/article_8.html
(NOTE: Certain terms have been altered “_” to avoid filter issues.)

Dear friend of the Family,
Welcome to all our new subscribers!
Success! Thank you to all of you who responded to our April “Spring Cleaning in the Finance Minister’s Office” campaign by writing Jim Flaherty and outlining your suggestions for reducing wasteful spending.
The government is listening!
This week the new Conservative government announced $2 Billion in spending reductions over the next two years. $1 Billion to be saved by cuts to programs and initiatives and a further $1 Billion through “tighter management” measures. (For a full list of the savings initiatives see: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060926.wxbudget26/BNStory/National/home
Included in the budget reductions is a profound move by the government to address corruption and waste. They have announced the elimination of the $5.5 Million Court Challenges Program (CCP).
Unfortunately, the last time the Conservatives tried to eliminate this program in 1992, special interest groups and certain academics complained loudly and lobbied heavily until the Chrétien Liberals reinstated the program in 1994.http://www.pch.gc.ca/newsroom/index_e.cfm?fuseaction=displayDocument&DocIDCd=4NR112
As expected, special interest groups are complaining loudly again in the media and lobbying Parliament hoping to convince the Conservatives to reverse their decision.
This Week’s 5 Minute Action Item
We need you to speak out and tell the government to hold firm. Send your personal letter to Prime Minister Harper, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Justice Minister Vic Toews, Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda, and your MP thanking them for putting an end to a program that is biased, circumvents the democratic process, is unaccountable, operates in a shroud of secrecy, is beyond the reach of Access to Information legislation, and is headed by a board and committee composed of members who have a conflict of interest by funding their own organizations.
Read below to learn more, then click here to send your 1 Click Letter http://www.1clicklobbyist.ca/index.php?affid=216
All it takes is 5 minutes to make a difference!

I) What is the Court Challenges Program (CCP)?
“The CCP has since 1985 funded dozens of high-profile court cases challenging the validity of federal and provincial laws in the name of feminism, gay rights, visible minorities, refugees, prisoners and the criminally accused.” http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3995
In 1985 the federal government set up the Court Challenges Program which was intended to help "disadvantaged" groups and individuals bring court challenges under the Charter of Rights. According to the former Liberal government, it provided “financial assistance for important court cases that advance language and equality rights guaranteed under Canada’s Constitution.”
In reality, the CCP has been a means to funnel government funds to special interest organizations in order to bypass Parliament and use the courts to challenge and change Canada’s laws with the help of taxpayer dollars.
As one critic put it, “no other federal program or law has done more damage to Canadian democracy. No other has so fundamentally altered Canadian society without recourse to Parliament.” http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3995

II) Legacy of the Court Challenges Program
“The CCP has never funded any cases other than those brought by leftist special interests in its 21 years of underwriting challenges to the Charter’s equality provisions.” Lorne Gunter, National Post September 27, 2006http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3995
Here are some examples of what special interest groups have used tax payer dollars for through the Court Challenges Program:
4)To challenge federal obscenity laws (Little Sisters Bookstore).
5)To give federal prisoners the right to vote, previously prohibited under the Canada Election Act, through a Supreme Court decision.
6)To pay the “Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law “$45,000 to challenge the right of parents to spank their children.
7)To change the laws regarding jury selection. “The Supreme Court of Canada, based on arguments funded by the Court Challenges Program, held that a person accused of a crime has the right to question prospective jurors about their racial biases (and by extension, a right to question prospective jurors about other biases, such as these: s_xual orientation, abortion, etc.). This decision effectively scuttles the historic role of a jury, which is to have an accused judged on the merits of the case by 12 of his/her peers, selected at random, to determine guilt or innocence. Now, anyone having traditional values can be omitted from jury trials.” http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/2000_Sept_Oct/article_6.html
8)To fund a marijuana activist who sued against the government for refusing to let the seriously ill smoke marijuana to relieve their suffering.
9)To pay intervenors who helped convince Supreme Court judges to grant themselves “reading in” powers to create new rights in Canadian law where none were approved by Parliament or the legislatures.
10)To overthrow and re-define marriage through the courts.
EGALE, the gay rights group that fought the three provincial court cases resulting in legalization of same-gender marriage in Ontario, BC and Quebec, had posted on its website that the cases were funded by the government-sponsored Court Challenges Program. (In addition, EGALE receives other government grants. According to the homos_xual newspaper, Capital Xtra (March 16, 2001) EGALE had an annual budget of $258,000 of which $105,000 came from government grants.)
The CCP funded homos_xual groups’ Intervention in the Reference Case to the Supreme Court in 2004; paid EGALE, a gay couple, and the Canadian Liberal Rabbi’s Interventions in the Same S_x marriage Cases. (It paid none of the fees of the lawyers representing citizen’s groups opposed to changing the traditional definition of marriage. These groups have had to raise their own funds to intervene in the challenges launched by the groups so bountifully funded by our tax dollars.)
Further, the CCP paid homos_xual organizations to argue against pro-family and faith based organizations applications for Leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court.
Between 1994 and 2002, the CCP paid for 23 homos_xual cases (4 of which were before the Supreme Court).

III) History of the CCP
“The Trudeau government launched the Court Challenges Program in 1978. It was designed to let language groups ratchet up pressure on the provinces to provide more bilingual services using the language guarantees in the British North America Act and, later, the Charter of Rights. In 1985, the Mulroney government extended the CCP to fund “equality seeking groups,” namely feminist, multicultural, gay, lesbian, and other groups…. The CCP has encouraged some groups to by-pass the political process by using the courts instead. Pro-life and traditional family groups, however, have consistently been denied CCP funds. It seems strange for the government to fund some causes and not others. It sees even stranger for the government to pay groups to challenge government legislation and government programs.”http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/chapterfiles/The%20Court%20Challenges%20Program-pp15-16.pdf

IV) An Unaccountable Biased Program
“The CCP may be funded by Canadian taxpayers, but it has been taken over by the very special interest groups that are its major beneficiaries. Aided by their ideological supporters in the academic and legal communities, these “rights-seeking” advocacy organizations use the program to fund court cases whose goal is a radical interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3995
Six years ago, “it became impossible to tell who actually gets money from the Court Challenges Program. The Program claimed it had a lawyer-client relationship with those it funded….As a result, the CCP no longer publishes the names of the groups it funds, and its files are no longer available under the Access to Information Act. Now, individuals and companies caught up in litigation with advocacy groups have no way to find out if federal money stands behind their legal opponents….
“The problem of transparency is compounded by the close links the CCP has to those it funds. Many members of the Program’s governing committees are drawn from groups that have received CCP funding in the past. When the Mulroney government expanded the CCP in 1985, the government contracted out the administration of the program to the Canadian Council on Social Development. This think tank in turn asked the groups planning to apply for CCP funds to help run the Program. Eventually, people closely connected to the groups that received CCP funds took on the role of deciding who would get support from the CCP.” http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/chapterfiles/The%20Court%20Challenges%20Program-pp15-16.pdf
Who sat on the CPP Board of Directors?”In its Annual Report 2001-2002, it was disclosed that its seven (7) member Board of Directors include Chantal Tie, the Chair of its Board of Directors, who is a member of the legal arm of the feminist movement, Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF); and lesbian Shelagh Day, former vice-president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) and also some of the founders of LEAF. The remaining Board members are human rights activists and ‘equality rights’ lawyers.”
Who sat on the Program’s Equality Advisory Committee?“The Equality Advisory Committee consists of representatives from the feminist organization, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (an affiliate of NAC), the feminist National Association of Women and the Law, and also LEAF (again!). Two homos_xual organizations are represented on the Committee, including Jon Fisher from the activist lobby group, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere (EGALE).”http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/2003_july_aug/article_8.html
Which organizations were the two biggest beneficiaries of the CCP?The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) and the gay-rights group EGALE.“By assisting in the framing of the legal action for one side only in these controversial social issues, the Program gives that position an undue advantage and influence in the Canadian courts. This would appear to be defeating the very objectives of the Charter itself. The bias of the Program also means that the social values of Canadians are being determined by the courts through legal research and court costs paid by the taxpayers, even though, for the most part, the public does not support the values being argued and promoted.” http://www.realwomenca.com/newsletter/2003_july_aug/article_8.html”Not only did left-leaning interest groups want to keep CCP cash flowing into their legal departments, they understood that if they controlled the CCP granting process, they could keep groups opposed to their viewpoints from receiving equal funding, thereby giving their own causes an unfair advantage in court.
”Over time, the CCP and its fundees have become a very cozy, close-knit little clan. The program almost never funds cases brought by individuals, only those supported by powerful rights-seeking lobbies, and almost always the same dozen or so lobbies.http://www.anticorruption.ca/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3995
“I expect that it has funded people in probably every major case involving the main “women’s rights” or “s_xual orientation” issues in Canada over the last decade. Certainly it seems to have provided assistance on virtually every case involving the freedom of religion with which I have been involved over the past decade. Interestingly, it has never assisted the religious side of those cases – or those who appeared to argue for particular concerns by religious groups – unless, that is, the religious issue supported the particular slant on the equality issue before the court – same-s_x claims etc. The “traditional” side of religious beliefs didn’t get the support of the Program. When “traditional” groups did apply to the Program they were turned down.” (Iain T Benson - Centre for Cultural Renewal, Centre Blog Fri Sep 15 2006, Vol. 124 “Why the Court Challenges Program Should be Abolished as Being Wrong in Principle”) http://www.culturalrenewal.ca/qry/page.taf?id=37&_nc=5f77305d47987c189758cef0119d0584

V) Take Action: Send Your 1 Click Letter in support of Axing the Court Challenges Program
This Week’s 5 Minute Action Item
We need you to speak out and tell the government that ending the Court Challenges Program was the right thing to do. They should not succumb to pressure from special interest groups to reinstate it.
Using our special technology, send your 1 click personal letter to Prime Minister Harper, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Justice Minister Vic Toews, Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda, and your MP thanking them for putting an end to this program.
Click here to send your 1 Click Letter http://www.1clicklobbyist.ca/index.php?affid=216
All it takes is 5 minutes to make a difference!
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