IWRP is incredibly honoured to screen Constitute! along with Toni Morrison and Beloved at the University of Baltimore Feminist Legal Theory Conference for 2011:

Applying Feminism Globally: Featuring Author and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison

Mallick: My Wall of Women Comforts Me

CBC Radio’s Sunday Edition - February 20th 2011

Valentine’s Day Revolution

They called it the Valentine’s Day Revolution. Or the counter conference. Thirty years ago this week - a spirited and angry group of Canadian women converged on Ottawa - and changed history.

It was a time when a new constitution and the still evolving Charter of Rights and Freedoms were hot topics.

Lloyd Axworthy, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women in the Trudeau government had just abruptly cancelled a conference - on women and the constitution - that he had originally agreed to host. Doris Anderson, Chair of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, resigned in protest. She thought - and Axworthy hoped - that would be the end of the story. Far from it.

Women in Toronto gathered to discuss Anderson’s resignation. They decided to go to Ottawa to register their protest and to hold a constitutional conference of their own. In a matter of days - long before the internet or social media - their numbers grew, and grew, and grew again. They sought out ever-larger meeting rooms, to accommodate everyone who joined their ranks.

More than 1300 women from across the country descended on Parliament Hill for that conference. Their actions ensured that the rights and freedoms in the proposed Charter of Rights would be guaranteed equally to women as well as to men.

Here is a montage of voices and sounds from the women’s counter conference, taken from a new documentary film called Constitute. The tape opens with the voice of Doris Anderson. You’ll hear Flora McDonald, Mary Eberts, Pauline Jewitt, Michele Landsberg, Linda Palmer Nye and others.

CBCradio Sunday February 20, 2021 Hour 2