Janke has an excellent post on the Court Challenges Program, and Stephen Harper's integrity in ending it, not just "fixing" it.

So special kudos to the Conservative Party and to Stephen Harper. They recognized that the CCP was not just a waste of money, or just poorly managed. They recognized that the CCP was not just something that could be fixed. They recognized that the CCP was inherently dangerous, that it could not be anything but a tool for a government to use to surreptitiously drive changes in the social landscape that align with a particular party's philosophy.

But reaching that understanding is not what earns the Conservative Party and to Stephen Harper much deserved praise. It is that they rejected the temptation to use that tool for themselves. They could have just as easily handed the CCP to the control of hand-picked bureaucrats who would have made sure that future funding went to groups looking for stronger property rights, for example, and any other Conservative-friendly issue you can imagine. But instead they recognized that the CCP is a corruptive influence. That whatever help the CCP could have provided in promoting conservatism was illusory, since it would have come at the cost of transparency and good governance. And ensuring transparency and good governance is far more important to protecting our Charter rights than anything the CCP could hope to accomplish.

Of course, the Bar Association, whose members stand to gain the most from the program, regardless of which way it swings, want it kept alive.

The Canadian Bar Association called on the federal government yesterday to reinstate the court challenges program.

The association said the program, recently cut by the Conservative government, is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of all Canadians, not just those with deep pockets.

The Trudeau-era program provided money so that minority and other marginal groups could finance legal challenges based on Charter arguments.

Trudeau-era. Therein lies the problem, folks! Like I said yesterday - just let it die.