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OTTAWA — The Liberal government’s failure to extend its Court Challenges Program to pay for Indigenous cases involving treaty rights doesn’t make sense at a time when reconciliation is supposed to be a priority, legal experts say.

They say the government should expand the program to include funding for cases under Section 35 of the Constitution, which deals with Aboriginal and treaty rights.

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Lorena Fontaine, an associate professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba and a former member of the program’s equality rights panel, said Wednesday she was “floored” when she first learned funding for Section 35 cases had been left out.

“We are in a period of reconciliation,” she said. “We have a government that is supposedly supportive of Aboriginal rights. We have a minister of justice who is Aboriginal. I just thought that given the climate, that there would have been that extra step in implementing the program to support Aboriginal rights cases.”