Francophone minority communities have fought many battles since 1867, especially in relation to access to education. These battles can be explained by the refusal of provincial governments “outside Quebec” to guarantee francophones access to schools where French is the language of instruction.  

From the 1960s onwards, provincial governments passed legislation allowing for the funding of French-language schools. However, school boards often refused to create such schools. Pressure by francophones on politicians was often insufficient to reverse the situation. The federal government, often an ally of official language minority communities, could not interfere in education which was an area of provincial jurisdiction.

One option for francophone parents was recourse to the courts. However, trials were long and costly. Parents from many communities hesitated before choosing this option since they did not have the financial means to pay for a lawyer to take the fight to court.

This letter, sent to Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau on January 19, 1978, describes the dilemma faced by the Parents’ Committee of the Prud’homme-St. Denis-Vonda region in Saskatchewan. The committee wanted the Saskatchewan government to create a French-language school. Lawyers had to be hired, but the committee did not have the financial means.

This request, along with others from Manitoba and Quebec, prompted the federal government to create the Court Challenges Program (CCP) in 1978. This program offered financial support to members of official language minority communities when they were forced to take legal action to enforce language rights. The program became an important tool for these communities, particularly after the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteed minority-language education where numbers warranted. The CCP and section 23 of the Charter would make it possible to obtain judgments favourable to language rights (see “French-Language Schools Operated for and by Francophones”).

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper abolished the CCP in 2006. Two years later, it partially reinstated it, but only for language cases. The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau subsequently created a new program, called the Modernized Court Challenges Program, in 2017.