The Charter of Rights and Freedoms: What about your responsibilities?

1. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms: What about your responsibilities?

2. Introduction • As an active Canadian citizen, you may have made the commitment to be environmentally friendly in all the things you do. You have taken the responsibility to understand what it means to recycle, reduce, and reuse. There are many opportunities for a person to make a commitment for a better environment. • In a home, a person may have made the commitment to make lunches for the members of the home.

3. Introduction • In your community a person may have made the commitment to volunteer at a local animal shelter. The person would have taken the responsibility to help find homes for lost and unwanted pets. • Here at CB, we made the commitment to be part of a school-wide citizenship project. We were responsible to get the student body involved to fundraise money for Operation Christmas Child.

4. Your Responsibilities • Responsibilities come in all shapes and sizes. What responsibilities do you have at home, at school, in your community, or as a Canadian citizen? Create a chart, and list the responsibilities under each of the headings: home, school, community, and citizen. • If you do not have any responsibilities, perhaps it is time for you to become an active and responsible Canadian! In your chart identify some responsibilities that you would like to have. • Be prepared to share with a partner.

5. Thinking about Responsibilities • Rights and freedoms come with responsibility. In this cartoon the child is confused about his human rights and his responsibility in his home. Think of a new caption for this cartoon. In your caption describe the rights that this child has and the responsibility he has as a member of his family.

6. Responsibilities • Rights and freedoms outlined in the Charter are more specific than the rights a person may find in a home and a school. The rules established by a family or a principal determine the rights an individual has. • Test yourself to see if you can determine the difference between rights, freedoms, and responsibilities as described in the Charter.

7. What about your individual rights? • Read pages 97 and 98. • Create a t chart like the one below on each of the rights and freedoms.

8. Thinking Critically • Let’s look a table with the statistics for the voter turnout by province for the 2004 federal election. Analyze the statistics in the chart Estimated Turnout by Province and Territory. • Complete the following steps: • Read the title. • Read the ages on the top of the chart and the provinces and territories on the side. • Begin at the left, and analyze the data from left to right. Look for figures that are high and low. • Based on your anylsis, write four statements about this chart.

9. Thinking Critically • Clearly, one important responsibility of Canadian citizens is voting in an election. • Let’s see what our government considers to be responsibilities we have as citizens. Citizenship in Canada. • Complete question two, part two on page 98.

10. Everyone in Canada has rights and responsibilities. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms ensures all Canadians fundamental freedoms and rights. It is part of our constitution and is based on Canadian laws and shared values. When confronted with a challenge, the Charter provides Canadians with the laws to ensure that Canada is a free and democratic society for all citizens.

11. “I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” • Former Governor General Michaelle Jean