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Page 6 February 13, 2017 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT u EDITORIAL OBITER By Gabrielle Giroday Close community The Ontario legal community is incredibly inter-connected. This is a great thing. When I walked into an Ontario Bar Associa- tion event in Toronto this past week, I met leaders in many practice areas sharing insight about their work. It was inspiring. But there's a downside to being in a close community or village. Law Times reports in this issue that a judge has stopped the Keno- ra Crown attorney's office from prosecuting a case of a man accused of charges including assault with a weapon, aggravated assault and sexual assault, after his defence lawyer took a job as a Crown days be- fore his trial was set to begin. "In the instant case, choice of counsel is not a consideration. The balancing of the integrity of the justice system and the mobility of lawyers is done in a context where the liberty of the accused is at stake," said Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Shaw in his deci- sion barring the Kenora Crowns from prosecuting R. v. Mandamin. Shaw ordered a Crown from another area be brought in to prosecute the man. In our last issue, Law Times reported that in Ontario v. Chartis Insurance Company of Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal up- held a decision barring a Toronto firm from representing an insur- ance company in a coverage dispute because of a potential conf lict of interest, even though the firm had followed all ethical guidelines, including making sure a lawyer had a work space several offices away from his colleagues. Court Challenges Program is back BY RICHARD CLEROUX P rime Minister Justin Trudeau was running out of time last week. People were starting to talk. It wasn't nice talk either. During the 2015 election campaign, Trudeau had promised that if elected he would bring back the sorely missed Court Challen- ges Program that former Prime Minister Stephen Harper had canned when he came to power in 2006. Trudeau had seemed serious enough, setting up the Commons Justice and Human Rights Committee and putting the very capable Liberal MP Anthony Housefather in charge of it. The committee did a fantastic job. Lib- eral, Conservative, New Democrat, they all got along together and worked hard pre- paring a new version of an expanded Court Challenges program. Then the finished work went to Trudeau. But for some reason Trudeau failed to deliver quickly. It was like his promise about changing the way we vote at election time. We are still waiting for that and it seems we may never get our new way of voting. The original Court Challenges Pro- gram also had a confused life. It was set up originally in 1978 by Pierre Trudeau, mainly to protect the official languages. But Brian Mulroney came to power and sliced off a good part of it. Then Jean Chrétien arrived and the program was given a renewed life. That was until 2006, when Stephen Harper came along and hacked away at it to save $2 million a year, or perhaps it was because he was fed up with constitu- tional lawyers getting rich by challenging the federal gov- ernment in court. Was this going to be another unfulfilled Trudeau election promise like the new electoral system promised during the last federal elec- tion? And then suddenly last week two of the brightest ministers in the Trudeau cabinet, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Justice Minister and Attorney Gen- eral Jody Wilson Raybould, appeared in the foyer outside the Commons and an- nounced proudly the Court Challenges Program was back on. There were more than 100 smiling onlookers, politicians, journalists and people who have been depending on the Court Challenges Program to win back rights protection they lost or could never win after 2006. Trudeau was cutting it close. Citizens can only wait so long for politicians to deliver on their electoral promises. The two ministers said they will be modernizing the program and pumping more money into it — something like $5 million a year instead of merely $1.5 million. The money will go to groups and citizens fighting the govern- ment over human rights and religious freedoms. The new Court Challenges Program will protect more than just fundamental freedoms and democratic rights. Added to that will be the right to life, liberty and security of the person. Sounds almost like something from the United States. In addition, language rights guar- anteed under the Official Languages Act will be added as well, including govern- ment communications and services to the public in both official languages. So will the language of work in government departments and services to the public. It has taken Trudeau more than a year since making his electoral promise, but no one can say he didn't go all the way with his reform. The new program will cover legal costs of official language rights and constitutional equality rights cases as well as those of fundamental Charter rights. We're also talking big money into the pockets of constitutional lawyers. It all starts later this year, likely in the fall. Nobody mentioned it at the news conference outside the Commons, but there will likely be a lot of legal money for lawyers interested in fighting con- stitutional and human rights cases. Too often, citizens have been deprived of their fundamental rights in the courts because they can't pay their litigation costs. That will end. There is no telling how far this new program could go. Some citizens could use the Court Challenges Program to guarantee their right to assisted suicide here in Canada rather than having to head off to Switz- erland or some other place. Canada's indigenous languages could get a big boost. Indigenous lawyers are preparing Court Challenges cases al- lowing First Nations speakers to use their own indigenous languages in courts under the same legal Court Challenges protection enjoyed by French and Eng- lish-speaking Canadians. When the doors are opened so wide, there's no telling where it could end. uRichard Cleroux is a freelance reporter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His email address is richardcleroux34@gmail.com. In both cases, there was no suggestion of wrongdoing by lawyers involved. Rather, concerns centred on whether the public might perceive that confidential information could be inadvertently disclosed. While it may be frustrating for firms, judges are right to take a cautious approach. There is too much at stake when it comes to reputational harm. LT ©2017 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written per- mission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Law Times disclaims any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the contents of this publication and disclaims all liability in respect of the results of any action taken or not taken in reli- ance upon information in this publication. 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