Justice.gc.ca is the website for the Department of Justice Canada. This website provides many resources on law and the justice system. In particular, I would like to focus on the “Rights and Freedoms in Canada” page which could be a particularly useful resource for the Law 30 curriculum.
What is it?
This is a page that briefly introduces the Canadian Bill of Rights, The Canadian Human Rights Act, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This page also describes the role of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and what the Charter protects.
What do I like about it?
- Great source for accurate information.
- Gives point form version of information about the Charter.
- Translated to use more understandable words (compared to actual document).
- Lists and elaborates points.
- Not a particularly long read so this could help increase engagement.
What do I dislike about it?
- Not very engaging/visually pleasing (it is a page from the government website so really, what do we expect?).
Where does this fit into the curriculum and how would I use it?
This resource fits in with the Law 30 curriculum. Specifically, this fits under the third foundational objective in unit one (pg 27) which states: “Know that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Saskatchewan and Canadian Human Rights Codes provide criteria to assess legal rights.” In this case, this resource provides the role of the Charter which includes legal rights.
Also, this could fit in with the fourth foundational objective (pg 27) in the same unit which states: “Know that sources of law include The Constitution, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Treaties, statues, and common law.” Here, this resource explains the Charter or Rights and Freedoms so students can have an understanding of this document and be able to conclude that it is a source of law.
In my classroom, there are a couple ways I could use this resource. The first way, is to go over the resource as a class and begin a discussion based off of some questions students might have or ones that I have thought of a head of time to ask the students. Another way is that I could get students to either individually or in small groups read this resource and then work on a worksheet that I have made up. Lastly, I could just use this as an extra resource and put it on the class blog/site for if students want to learn more about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms outside of class.
Evaluation of the Department of Justice website.
One issue that I had with this site is that it didn’t have a search box. When I go to a website, I would rather type a topic into a search box and see what related articles I get, rather than having to click through a bunch of different pages to finally find what I was looking for. I found the website fairly easy to navigate through and the resources page provides a lot of great information on all the different types and issues of law including: war crimes, violence, violence against women, drugs, and dispute resolution. However, I was quite surprised to find the resource that I discusses not under this resources page. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to find it if it didn’t tell me which pages I had clicked though to get to this page. Here’s an example of what I mean:
So, if I had to give this website a numerical value, I would give it a 8/10 and the resource itself would receive a 7.5/10.
Ashley McMurchy 