Why Section 1
A free and democratic society needs citizens with the knowledge and the courage to protect it.
Institutions and laws alone do not sustain democracy. People do. Courts, elections, and parliaments make up the architecture of democracy, but it is citizens who hold them accountable. Section 1 educates for exactly that.
Founding and purpose
Section 1 is a registered Canadian charity. Its name comes from Section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which sets out the essential conditions of a free and democratic society.
Peter Biro, a democracy scholar and lawyer, founded Section 1 in 2018. The charity’s aim is to make sure Canada’s education system genuinely prepares young people to understand and defend those conditions — not through activism or advocacy for particular causes, but through education that helps people understand, value, and defend the principles a free and democratic society depends on.
Section 1 is non-partisan. It doesn’t ask students to take up any political cause. Its focus is more foundational: preparing every citizen to take part in democratic life by grounding them in the principles that make that life worth protecting.
Our Mission
To give every citizen an education in what democracy asks of them — and the confidence and sense of duty to answer.
Section 1’s approach starts from a simple idea: everyone is born free and equal, but no one is born knowing how to govern themselves or take part effectively in public life. You have to learn to drive before you get behind the wheel.
Defending a free and democratic society takes more than good intentions. It takes a real grounding in the principles that make it work, and practice applying them. People don’t just need to learn the fundamentals of democratic life — they need to make those fundamentals their own.
What We Teach
Our curriculum is built on a set of first principles — the fundamentals that a free society depends on.
What makes Section 1 different
Most organizations working on democracy do one of a few things: they measure the health of democratic institutions, teach people how democratic processes work, train future leaders for public service, or support democratic institutions abroad. Each of these is valuable.
Section 1 does something different. Rather than only teaching students about political institutions and processes, it aims to prepare them to become effective guardians of their own freedom and democracy — grounded in the principles a free and democratic society depends on, and ready to insist on those principles being upheld.
Unlike organizations built around a particular cause, Section 1 is non-partisan by design. It teaches the operating system of democracy, not any program running on it. Effective participation in public life takes preparation — understanding the fundamentals is what makes defending them possible.
Section 1 doesn’t tell people what to think, or which causes to champion. It helps people notice what’s happening around them, think clearly about it, and act on their own judgment when the principles of a free and democratic society are at stake. In a public conversation often driven by activism, Section 1 is on the side of truth-seeking.
Why now
Civic literacy in Canada is uneven, and the gap is real. The Samara Centre for Democracy has documented a widening gap in civic literacy between older and younger Canadians. The Canadian Constitutional Foundation found that only 9 percent of Canadians could correctly identify what the Charter does not protect.
Many young Canadians can’t name the rights and freedoms they’re entitled to — even as they feel the effects of democratic backsliding around them. Section 1 exists to close that gap.
Get involved
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