In the Name of All Canadians

Celebrate Canada’s 150th this weekend with Hot Docs. The documentary film festival commissioned six short films that explore The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Those shorts are being presented as the feature length film, In the Name of All Canadians.

In The Long Way Home, mobility rights listed in the Charter are questioned by looking at the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen who was kept in exile in Sudan for years after being labelled a national-security risk by the Harper government. Directed by Aisha Jamal and Ariel Nasr, both from Afghanistan (Aisha herself came to Canada as a refugee), they offer an interesting perspective on this case and the importance of this right.

In Last Resort religious rights in the Charter are addressed by looking at the case of Ktunaxa Nation and the Jumbo Glacier Resort, which is now before the Supreme Court with a decision being expected this year.

The right to equality is discussed in Lessons Injustice as the film follows Danardo Jones, a one-time Toronto crack dealer who graduated from Carleton University and is now a lawyer, as he educates his son about how Canadian society perceives black men, and the struggles he will be faced with as he grows up.

Notwithstanding, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Patrick Reed, was inspired by today’s unsettling political climate and real-life Canadian events -Japanese internment during WWII, the detainment of G20 protestors, and the stories of prisoners in solitary confinement and Muslims in Canada facing discrimination – and hypothesizes a situation in which the Notwithstanding clause in the Charter is enacted, illustrating how potentially catastrophic the clause can be to freedom in this country.

L’Inspecteur questions language rights in the Charter by exploring a time when it was illegal to teach French in Manitoba schools in the early 1900s. A personal story for sibling directors Janelle and Jérémie Wookey as both are Métis and Franco-Manitobans, and have a strong understanding of what it means to be denied the right to practice your culture.

In Part is a mosaic in the form of a series of Canadian portraits and interviews, ranging from topics related to the Charter, to the existential, to the seemingly insignificant. Inspired by the Proust questionnaire.

In the Name of All Canadians is currently playing in select theatres including the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto.