Justice committee  The ACLC's position on section 7 is that it should not be stand-alone—sorry, Mr. Mia—because of the floodgates issue. While we support provincial jurisdiction, we support section 7 if it's linked to section 15, in terms of the provincial jurisdiction as well, and if it has national implications, not just within the provincial context.

Justice committee  It is important to note the experts that are on those panels and the credibility they have. They have done a superb job in picking cases that have a wide, national, and systemic impact. The way the program is structured and the organizations that are involved, it is a culture of consensus.

Justice committee  Absolutely.

Justice committee  Absolutely. I think perception is important. There's a perception communities may have where they feel it's not accessible. That may or may not be the case. But I think also in terms of what can sometimes be a bureaucratic structure within universities is very problematic. It's important that the court challenges program, if it is a stand-alone organization, has the administrative dollars to operate properly.

Justice committee  Yes, absolutely.

Justice committee  No. I think that doesn't ensure stability. Public-private funding requires you to be in the goodwill of the private sector. In terms of stability, we strongly support a legislative framework, an endowment or a foundation similar to what was done with the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, and that this be supported by government.

Justice committee  One way of doing that is ensuring that the program isn't all about lawyers and all about litigation, and that communities are aware of their equality rights, their charter rights, and what equality rights mean.

Justice committee  One way of doing that is through consultation, by increasing the funding for consultations, and consultations at a national level and throughout the case. We found in our experience at the ACLC that this was very important. It's also important in our experience as well to fund interventions into cases.

Justice committee  I am a fan of alternative dispute resolution. It does have a place in our legal system—

Justice committee  —but I think that when we're talking about equality rights, we're talking about systemic change and systemic impact, and alternative dispute resolution doesn't lend itself to that.

Justice committee  For the individual...it's individualized.

Justice committee  It's individualized, absolutely.

Justice committee  Thank you, sir. Reinstating and modernizing the court challenges program will serve to enable long-standing inequities facing the African Canadian community to be more fairly, effectively, and correctively addressed through the Canadian court system. This is particularly true when considering that a disproportionately high number of African Canadians live on the margins of social and economic inclusion, are impoverished, precariously housed, and dramatically overrepresented in all levels of the criminal justice system, including provincial and federal prisons.

Justice committee  Good morning. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present before this panel. This submission has been prepared for the purpose of communicating the African Canadian Legal Clinic's interest in supporting the Government of Canada's decision to reinstate and update the court challenges program.