Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will have your stop watch out.
I am very pleased to express my support for property rights in Canada. The issue of property rights is an important one for all Canadians. It is not merely an issue for the wealthy or for those with business interests.
It is not an issue that can be labelled left or right. It is about personal freedom which is fundamental to free societies. It is a tragedy that a mature democracy like Canada has excluded the right to own property from its constitutional and legal tradition. I will explain how the issue of property rights, or rather a lack of them, adversely affects prairie farmers.
The effect of inadequate property provisions in our legal system means that these farmers do not really own all the commodities they produce. To own something means that one can choose how one uses one's property so long as it does not harm others.
Wheat is not a hazardous substance, therefore the farmer should be able to sell his grain to anyone he pleases by the marketing mechanisms he or she with colleagues choose at whatever price the buyer and seller mutually agree to.
Moreover, the farmer would have the choice of the means of transportation and the route taken to ship the wheat. After all, it is his grain, is it not? In the prairies wheat does not belong to the farmer. It is not his because he cannot sell it freely. He is told who he will sell the grain to. He is told what the price will be and he is told how he must ship the grain. Because of the lack of property rights in Canada, farmers do not own the wheat they produce with their own labour. By implication, the farmer does not own his own labour and therefore he does not own himself.
The farmer is reduced to being an agent of the state, paid for his efforts whatever the government decides to pay him for the produce. If property rights were honoured, all farmers would have the choice whether they wanted to market collectively. I am sure many farmers would make that choice. That is fine as long as it is the farmer's free choice and not one mandated by government.
It is said all that a man owns is himself and his labour. Because of that he then owns the fruit of his labour. By introducing property rights into the Canadian legal tradition we would be freeing farmers to make their own choices about how to meet their own needs using their own resources and the fruits of their own labour. Property rights legislation would give each farmer the authority to make his or own decision as to how to meet those needs.
I would urge all members of this House, particularly members from farm communities, to support the principle of property rights in Canada.