The Court Challenges Program, a means to ensure that unconstitutional laws could be challenged by those who otherwise couldn’t afford it, was scrapped by the Federal Tories in 2006. The program, which cost a pittance, was cut largely due to lobbying from anti-gay groups who were angry that the program was helping to strike down laws that illegally infringed upon gay rights.

Due to an out-of-court settlement with the Federation de Communautes Francophone et Acadienne du Canada, the program appears to be making a comeback. Sadly, it’s not without some major changes to fit in with the ideological reasons why the program was cut in the first place.

The first change is the name: It’s now called the Program to Support Linguistic Rights. The second change is exactly what the name implies: It’s exclusively to support linguistic rights, and not the rights of everyone. This means that there still will not be a way to challenge illegal laws that infringe upon minority rights without having deep pockets.

Helen Kennedy, a spokesperson for the gay rights group Egale, expressed disappointment in the replacement:

[The Tories] are ranking minorities. How do you place precedence of one group over another?

This is really a problem and I think that we’ve seen a slow, subtle erosion of LGBT rights since the Tories came to power. This is a very subtle way of denying us access to the justice system.

In 2007, opposition leader Stephen Dion vowed to ressurrect the Court Challenges Program as it existed before it was cut.

• Coalition clamours for full reinstatement of Court Challenges Program [Xtra]

• Alvaro Orozco, the refugee who was denied Canadian citizenship because he didn’t look “gay enough” is still facing deportation to Nicaragua where homosexuality is illegal. The application to re-open his case was dismissed, but there’s still a chance he could file a standard application for immigration from within Canada on humanitarian grounds. Sadly, pretending to be gay to obtain refugee status is not uncommon, but the circumstances under which Orozco’s application was denied were downright silly.
• Niagara Falls officials have replaced the Pride flag that mysteriously vanished less than four hours after its raising ceremony. Thankfully they have “some ideas” to make sure this one stays put. At the top of the list: piping in Kylie Minogue to create an appropriate anti-heterosexual radius.
• The City of Ottawa has adopted policies ensuring that Capital Xtra, a gay community newspaper, cannot be censored from city community centres. The paper was removed from a public facility after Greg Evans, a local man, complained that his son could have seen it at basketball practice. Though the paper’s censorship was illegal, I can attest to the dangers of gay community newspapers: The last time I picked one up, I got a paper cut.
• The federal conservatives’ scrapping of the gay-friendly Court Challenges Program has turned out to be illegal. According to a report by the official languages commissioner, removing public funding to challenge unconstitutional laws violated Officials Languages Act. The government, in the interests of transparency and accountability, has not responded.

Well, have a great weekend kiddos!

Defibrillator clear? It’s not too late! Opposition Leader Stephane Dion has vowed to restore the Court Challenges Program, which was unexpectedly turfed by the Conservative government last autumn after lobbying by “pro-family” special interest groups.

The Court Challenges Program was available to any group who wished to challenge unconstitutional laws, and was instrumental in awarding equal benefits for same-sex couples, among other important rights-related cases.

So, will this program actually be re-instated? Maybe if enough people in the government think that they ought to be protecting people from rights-trampling legislation rather than passing it… But, hey—when has Canada ever done anything quite so crass?

• Dion promises to restore court challenges program [CTV News]

Well, that didn’t take long! The Conservative Government announced yesterday that they have cut funding for the gay-friendly Canadian Heritage Department and turfed the gay-friendly Court Challenges Program entirely. (The gay-friendliness is surely just a coincidence, don’t you think?)

The Canadian Heritage Fund was—probably coincidentally—attacked by the right wing lobby groups REAL Women of Canada and Focus on the Family Canada earlier this month for supporting the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Almost certainly coincidentally, that’s the same lobby that was bleating about the Court Challenges Program days prior to that.

Speaking of amazing coincidences, The Court Challenges Program has been used repeatedly by gay groups to challenge horribly unconstitutional bans on same-sex marriage—the very thing that the new government is trying to re-introduce. Though, the timing is certainly also an amazingly improbable coincidence.

Anyway, these surely non-ideological budget cuts were made despite an over 13 billion dollar surplus inherited from the former Liberal government. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the new government is exercising an unconstitutional opposition to equal rights for gays. But, instead, I’m going to think it’s just Coincidence Month in Canada. I’m never told about Coincidence Month.

• Ottawa comes under fire for budget cuts [Globe and Mail]
• Liberal programs axed under Tory spending cuts [CTV News]
• Flaherty tries not to offend [Toronto Star]