Funding: Once Funding is Granted

Once Funding is Granted

Before you decide to apply for funding, you should know what the Program will expect from you, and what you can expect from the Program, if funding is granted.

What you can expect from the Program
What the Program expects from you
Information Sharing
Changes in Funding

What you can expect from the Program

Communication - The Program will communicate with you regularly about your funding. After the Panel's decision, you will receive a decision letter which will explain the Panel's decision and any conditions the Panel imposed. The decision letter will tell you whether we have accepted your case/project workplan and, if not, which changes you will need to make.

Included with the decision letter will be a Funding Agreement. The Executive Director of the Program will sign it to show that the Program is agreeing to provide funding. You will sign it to show that you accept the conditions in the decision letter and agree to abide by them. By signing, you will also agree to abide by the Program's Funding Guidelines, which will be attached to the Funding Agreement.

At the same time, or soon after, you will receive a copy of your approved budget, which sets out in detail the amount of funding and the things it may be used for.

Processing of Accounts - You are entitled to send accounts to the Program for the expenses you have to pay in your case or project. If your lawyer or someone else is sending an account for payment, you must look at it first and tell us that you agree with it.

We will process accounts as we receive them. Because a member of our Board of Directors must approve any payment we make, processing takes approximately 30 days.

You may send accounts before your case or project is finished. We will process the accounts in the usual way and pay the eligible portion. However, we will not pay all of your funding until your final report has arrived and been approved.

Assistance - Program staff will answer your questions and do whatever they can to assist you as you go along in your case or project. Just call and ask.

What the Program expects from you

Meeting Panel conditions and complying with Funding Guidelines - You are responsible for making sure that you, your lawyer and anyone else working on your case or project meets the conditions set by the Panel and follows the Funding Guidelines. When you receive your funding agreement, you should read the Funding Guidelines carefully to make sure you understand them. If you have any questions, we will be happy to answer them.

Submitting Accounts - It is up to you to make sure that the accounts you submit for payment:

do not exceed the amounts in your Approved Budget
are itemized and broken down as required in the Funding Guidelines
accurately state the expenses you are responsible for
include only the costs of the case or project for which you received funding

More detailed information about how to submit accounts for reimbursement may be found in the Funding Guidelines.

Reporting - You are required to provide the Program with a final report at the end of your case or project. For case funding, your final report must include a copy of the court's decision in your case. Special requirements for reports for other kinds of funding will be in your funding agreement.

Until your final report has been approved by the Program, we will not pay any more than 75% of the amount of funding on your Approved Budget.

If your case or project takes longer than six months to complete, you must send us progress reports every six months. Interim reports should tell us what is happening in the case or project and should point out any changes that have occurred since the funding was granted.

Continuing with your Case - If you receive funding for a test case on language or equality rights, we expect that you will continue with the case until the court makes a decision. Cases are funded by the Program because of their potential to make things better for groups whose rights have been ignored or taken away. If you do not continue with the case, that opportunity is lost and your case is no longer a test case. When that happens, you must tell us right away and your funding will be reviewed.

Choice of lawyer - The cases and projects we fund are chosen because they are important for language and equality rights. When you hire lawyers and other people to work on your case or project, you are expected to look for people who have experience and knowledge in language or equality rights.

You should consider the following when selecting a lawyer:

amount and type of experience, especially regarding equality or language rights;
how long has the lawyer been in practice;
amount and type of courtroom experience;
experience and knowledge with the particular issues in your case.

Costs - "Costs" means an amount of money that the Court orders one party in a case to pay to another. The money is used to pay lawyers' fees and other expenses in the case. Frequently, the court orders the losing party to pay costs to the winning party, although this is not always so.

Under the Program's Funding Guidelines, if you are involved in a court case, you must ask the court to order that the other party pay costs to you. If you are granted costs, you must tell us about it and we may make an adjustment in the amount of your funding.

It is important for you to know that the Program is not responsible for any cost award made against you or your counsel. You are solely responsible for any costs you are ordered to pay to the other party.

Information Sharing

The Program receives a huge amount of information from applicants, lawyers and other people interested in language and equality rights. Some of the information may be made available to the public; while other information must be held in strictest confidence. If you apply for and receive funding from the Program, here is what we do with the information you give us:

Confidentiality - Until a funding decision is made, we treat information we receive in the application process as confidential. This means that we do not reveal it to anyone outside the Program without your permission. Included in this category are things like your name and where you live, what your case or project is about and what you are planning to argue.

We only make an exception to this rule when the information is already public information. For example, if you have started a case in court, there is a public record which anyone is allowed to see. We would not ask for your permission if we wanted to talk about this public part of the information.

Public Reporting of Panel Decisions - We prepare regular reports on the decisions made by our Panels for the federal government and for the public. This information, which includes the names of the applicants and cases, appears in places like our Annual Report and on our Internet website.

We do not include your name or any other information which will identify you if:

you receive case development funding
a court has granted an order in which your identity is protected in the case for which funding is granted
it would cause a breach of solicitor-client privilege. This is a special obligation your lawyer has to protect information you give to him or her.

Information Sharing to Advance Rights - If information in your application will help others to advance their rights, we would like to try to make it available to them. In the same way, we will try to share helpful information from other applications with you.

Documents filed with the Court are considered public documents and can be shared with others. Case-development reports and other information which is confidential to the applicants will only be shared with their permission.

In addition, the Program is developing research resources which will help all equality-seeking and official language minority groups. We ask that a copy of any legal research, press clipping, support letter, or other relevant document relating to your case be sent to the Program.

Changes in Funding

Sometimes, after funding is initially granted, it is necessary to review and possibly change the amount of funding or a condition on funding or to suspend or withdraw it. Changes may only be made by the Panel and may be made at your request or at the request of the Program.

1. Changes you ask for:

(a) Adjustments to the Budget - If you find as you go along that your budget does not match your actual costs, you may request an adjustment. Adjustments may be made quite easily if you are not asking for any increase in the amount of funding.

(b) Additional Funding - If you were granted less than the maximum amount for the type of funding your received and you discover that the cost of the case is greater than you expected when you prepared your original budget, you may ask for additional funding up to the maximum in the category.

To ask for additional funding, you must submit a new budget and an explanation of what the additional funding will be used for. Your request will be presented to the Panel at its next meeting.

(c) Extraordinary Funding - In rare cases, where the cost of a case goes beyond the maximum amount available from the Program, you may want to ask for extraordinary funding. This funding is granted only in cases where:

the maximum amount of case funding has been applied for or granted and it does not cover the costs of the case; and
there are extraordinary circumstances in the case which justify going past the usual maximum

The Panel will only grant extraordinary funding where there are compelling reasons to do so. To apply for extraordinary funding, you must submit a new budget and a detailed explanation of the reasons for the request.

2. Changes the Program asks for

The Program is entitled to ask the Panel to review your funding at any time if you don't meet the conditions of funding imposed by the Panel or comply with the Funding Guidelines. You will be advised of the Program's request to the Panel and given an opportunity to respond to the concerns raised by the Program.

The Panel has the right to vary the amount or conditions of funding or to suspend or withdraw funding. You will be notified of the Panel's decision and advised of the reasons for it and the effective date of the change in funding.

NOTE: This document summarizes information which is found in more detail in the Program's Funding Guidelines. Before accepting funding from the Program by signing a Funding Agreement, you should read the Funding Guidelines carefully.

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