The Court Challenges Program of Canada (CCP) is a non-profit organization whose stated purpose is "to provide financial assistance for important court cases that advance language and equality rights guaranteed under Canada's Constitution".
Its history can be traced to 1978, when the federal government of Canada began providing assistance for minority language cases. The government of Brian Mulroney created an expanded Court Challenges Program in 1985, after the equality section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms became law. However, the Mulroney government later withdrew financial support for the program in 1992. This was a controversial decision, and was opposed by many groups supporting social equality. The government of Jean Chrétien re-established the program in 1994, and the current CCP traces its origins to this period.
The government of Stephen Harper abolished the $5.5M in funding for the program in 2006. This was again a controversial decision, and was strongly criticized by some socially progressive organizations. The CCP no longer accepts new applications for funding, although it honours pre-existing grants and continues to process requests for reimbursement for these grants.
The program was partially restored in June 2008 for the official languages minority component of the program, under the name Language Rights Support Program.
Famous quotes containing the words court, challenges, program and/or canada:
“If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Worn down by the hoofs of millions of half-wild Texas cattle driven along it to the railheads in Kansas, the trail was a bare, brown, dusty strip hundreds of miles long, lined with the bleaching bones of longhorns and cow ponies. Here and there a broken-down chuck wagon or a small mound marking the grave of some cowhand buried by his partners “on the lone prairie” gave evidence to the hardships of the journey.”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)