Press Release: Canadian Constitution Foundation to celebrate 30th Anniversary of Charter with launch of OriginalDocuments.ca

Press Release: Canadian Constitution Foundation to celebrate 30th Anniversary of Charter with launch of OriginalDocuments.ca

TORONTO, ON: On April 17, 2012, Canadians will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is celebrating by launching a new website called “Original Documents” at www.OriginalDocuments.ca.

“Original Documents” is a free online and collaborative database of background documents, searchable and downloadable in PDF format, from the early 1960s through to the 1980s, leading up to and including the adoption of the Charter. Constantly expanding with the addition of new content, the website currently houses over 40,000 pages related to the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982, of which the Charter was the first part.

CCF Executive Director and lawyer Chris Schafer said, “This is the ‘People’s Constitution’ and it needs to be available to the people, and this project does just that. A lot of the documents on this website have never been put online and made available to the public before”.

Scott Reid, MP, added that,”This website will be extremely useful to historians, jurists, lawyers, legal academia and law students, trying to establish what the Constitution and Charter meant to those who were framing it. Now we can go back and find the original meaning of our Constitution and Charter with greater accuracy”.