2025-2026 Bernard Chernos Contest Details

Option One

The Ministry of Education in the province of New Island has announced a new initiative to help prevent teenagers from dropping out of high school.  They will use an artificial intelligence tool to determine who is most at risk of dropping out, and provide additional supports to the students that are identified.  Data that will be inputted into the AI system to determine a student’s risk of dropping out include, but are not limited to: the distance between a student’s home and their school; how often a student’s family has moved in the past several years; parents’ education levels; and behavioural indicators such as absences, lateness, and misbehaviour.  Do you support this proposal? Why or why not? What are the potential benefits and risks of this policy? What Charter rights and freedoms are at play?

Option Two

Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, also known as the Notwithstanding Clause, gives parliaments in Canada the ability to override certain portions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for 5-year terms. With reference to specific cases, comment on the increasingly frequent use of the Notwithstanding Clause and its implications for the protection of Charter rights in Canada. Why are governments using the Notwithstanding Clause more often? How does this affect the human rights landscape in Canada, and democracy more broadly?  What changes, if any, would you recommend to the rules surrounding the use of the Notwithstanding Clause?

Option Three (same as essay question, but can be submitted in video format)

1. Choose a Right or Freedom –> Select one section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (e.g., equality rights, mobility rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, etc).

2. Local Connection –> Identify a specific example from your city/town or school where this right has been relevant in the last five years.  What happened? How was the chosen Charter right applied or debated?  Who benefited (or did not benefit) from this right? Did this Charter right conflict with another Charter right or with someone else’s freedoms?  Was the Charter right limited in any way, and if so, was this limit reasonable? How does this example connect to the broader Canadian context?

3. Reflection –> If this right didn’t exist, how would your daily life be different? Be specific. What did your specific example show you about the importance of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

*Note: please keep the geographic range as local as possible; the example should be from your school or your community. It does not have to be an explicit Charter issue, but should involve one or more of the rights that are identified in the Charter.  For example: has your school made new rules around hate speech and political symbols? This would engage with Section 2 b) of the Charter, Freedom of Expression.  Does your local hockey arena prioritize male over female hockey for prime booking slots? This would engage with Section 15, equality rights.  These are just hypothetical examples, but we want you to engage with local issues, and analyze how the Charter is relevant.