The Walrus received $52,000 to print special collector editions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms so more Canadians could be exposed to the foundational legal document, the magazine’s publisher said.

Canadian Heritage made the grant to the Walrus Foundation, the Toronto-based non-profit that oversees the magazine’s publication, in December 2016, according to an order paper question issued by Conservative MP David Anderson in October.

The department will print and mail copies of the charter for free to anyone by following a process on its website.

The Walrus Foundation originally thought it might be able to get free copies from the federal government or a digital version that would be easy to manipulate, but Canadian Heritage wasn’t able to provide either, said Shelley Ambrose, executive director of the foundation and publisher of the magazine.

“We were wrong,” said Ambrose. “We had to create the whole thing ourselves because they didn’t have a digital, malleable version that we could resize, that would fit in the magazine. So our outside designers and art department recreated all the art, the words.”

The bulk of the $52,000 went to the printing and distribution of 80,000 copies of the charter, which were inserted in a special publication co-produced with Canadian Geographic called The Story of Canada in 150 Objects, said Ambrose.

The charter, because of its legal and social significance, was included among those objects.

Another portion of the funds went to a national speaking tour that included speeches on the charter, said Ambrose.

The Story of Canada in 150 Objects is not one of the scheduled printings of the Walrus or Canadian Geographic, but is treated as a ‘special interest publication’, much like a book, she said.

The foundation doesn’t expect to make a profit on the project.

“We did it for Canada 150, we needed some help, some money to do it,” said Ambrose. “Publishing magazines is not a profit-making enterprise. That’s why we fundraise.”

None of the charter’s editorial or office costs were borne by the grant, she said. Those have to be taken care of by the Walrus’ other sources of income, which include philanthropic ventures and other government supports.

“We’re lucky if this breaks even,” she said.

The foundation has an educational mandate to create forums for matters vital for Canadians.

“All Canadians should read the charter,” said Ambrose. “Even though you can go read it, people don’t. This is a way to kind of get it into people’s hands. In a way, they’re buying The Story of Canada in 150 Objects and through that they’re going to learn a whole bunch of stuff and one of them is about the charter on its 35th birthday. To us it was a no-brainer.”

Canadian Heritage, in a response provided after this article’s initial publication, gave a similar reason when asked why the grant was awarded.

“Supporting this special edition provided our department with an opportunity to broaden its outreach to make people aware of their rights and freedoms as set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” wrote spokesperson David Larose in an email.

Copies of the publication are on newsstands and 20,000 copies remain in the warehouse – 10,000 belonging to Canadian Geographic and 10,000 belonging to the Walrus.

The two publications are waiting until February to decide how to deal with any remaining copies; they’ll consider the option of donating them to public libraries, said Ambrose.

Disclosure: iPolitics partners with the Walrus on a podcast. None of the editors or reporters involved in this story also work on the podcast.

Contact James Munson at [email protected] or on Twitter at @james_munson.