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 The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in- ...

began providing assistance for

minority language A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) a ...

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 The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part ...

'' became law. However, the Mulroney government later withdrew financial support for the program in 1992. This was a controversial decision, and was opposed by some people. 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 $5.5 million in funding for the program in 2006. This was again a controversial decision, and was strongly criticized by some civic society groups. For a time the CCP stopped accepting new applications for funding, although it honoured pre-existing grants and continued 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. As of February 2017, the Court Challenges Program has been reinstated with an annual budget of $5 million.

References

External links

Court Challenges Program of Canada Language Rights Support Program
{dead link, date=August 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes 1985 in Canada Human rights in Canada