Mr. Speaker, we are here today to debate and ideally to support and pass Motion No. 205 respecting individual property rights.
While this is not a novel undertaking, its time may have come, given that Canadian parliamentarians and others have been trying to entrench a property rights amendment in the bill of rights and/or in the charter of rights and freedoms going back to at least 1968.
While I find it difficult to follow in the footsteps of Pierre Trudeau, it is not difficult to support what is the logical extension of the bill of rights by amending it and providing a greater measure of protection for individual property rights.
I can see no logical reason not to support the motion. Quite simply, it transcends partisan politics. The history behind the motion speaks to its non-partisan, apolitical past.
As it now stands there is little protection for a person's right to own, use and enjoy property. What little protection there is can be found in the Canadian Bill of Rights, Mr. Diefenbaker's historic document.
The beauty of this motion is that it does not threaten some provinces and special interest groups which argue against including property rights in the charter of rights and freedoms because they feel it intrudes into areas which are the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces. By using the bill of rights this issue is avoided and provincial concerns are assuaged.
It is time to raise this issue from its dormancy, remove the fears of some, particularly the New Democratic Party which can extrapolate concerns where there are none, and give Canadians a basic protection which for far too long has eluded us.
Pierre Trudeau tried several times to include property rights in the bill of rights, then again in the proposed charter of human rights, and then again he proposed them in a constitutional amendment bill. This was all followed by a motion introduced in the House of Commons by Tory MP John Reimer in 1987 on property rights which the House supported in a major way with a vote of 108 to 16.
In 1982 a property rights resolution was passed unanimously by the B.C. legislature, followed by very similar support with a resolution in the New Brunswick legislature in 1983 and the Ontario legislature in 1986.
In 1987 the Canadian Real Estate Association commissioned a poll which found that 81 per cent of Canadians considered property rights were either very or fairly important. In a follow-up paper in 1991 the real estate association called for an amendment to the charter to include property rights.
The deficiency in the bill of rights, let alone the charter, is glowing in its lack of recognition of property rights. If we compare this with the fifth amendment to the United States constitution which calls for due process of the law and compensation with respect to private property, we are primitive in Canada and sadly unconscious of this basic fundamental right. Why we have deprived Canadians of this inherent right confounds many observers, among them constitutionalists and the courts.
If our concern is generated by a lack of a definition of property we could only go to the Canadian law dictionary to help define it for us. The dictionary breaks property into two forms: real property, lands, tenements or any interest in buildings erected or affixed to the land; and personal property, goods, chattels, effects and the like.
As it now stands, the government's power to pass legislation through which it takes private property without providing compensation is unlimited. Government can arbitrarily step in to take private property without any kind of compensation. This is outright scary in a country like Canada.
This has come home to roost twice in recent times, specifically Bill C-22, now called Bill C-28, the Pearson airport debacle, and Bill C-68, the firearms act. These two examples of trampling on personal property rights would never have seen the light of day if we had a property rights amendment.
It is inherently one's right to enjoy one's personal and real property and the right not to be deprived of it unless the person is accorded a fair hearing and is paid fair compensation for it. This is hardly a radical concept, and should these two elements be infringed it is not too much to ensure remedy through the courts.
This would be a check and balance against the tyranny of concentrated power in government. There is a fundamental interdependence between personal rights and liberties and the personal rights in property. Property rights are a cornerstone of any civilized society, the notion that you own yourself and your labour.
This motion will enrich Canadian society, protect individual freedoms and protect the environment. People protect the environment around them, their personal property. Governments weigh political benefits of protecting the environment and consequently personal property. It seems so patently unfair to deprive Canadians of this fundamental premise in life. Let us not allow this opportunity to slide by once again.
It is so fundamental an issue that it is difficult not to get repetitive in debate on this issue. The opponents of entrenching property rights will extrapolate potential scenarios unreasonably to make their case. The crucial issue is to define property in a practical working definition.
The fifth amendment to the constitution of the United States specifically protects private property. Americans have lived with this definition for over 200 years and it has stood the test of time.
Canada has every opportunity to define private property in a Canadian context to bring us up to the same standard of protection of private property as other western democracies. There is no requirement in Canadian constitutional law that compulsory taking of property be effected by a fair procedure or that it be accompanied by fair compensation to the owner.
This motion would have the effect of extending private property rights to non-natural persons such as corporations. For the federal government to pass legislation such as the Pearson airport package, which has the effect of nullifying contracts and agreements without compensation, would require a vote of at least two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons. The net effect would be that the Liberal government could not single handedly achieve this Pearson bill without other parties' support. This is an enlightened provision on so fundamental an issue.
In summary, I quote words presented in October 1995 to the Canadian Real Estate Association. Mr. Speaker, you may recognize the words because they are yours, the member for Edmonton Southeast:
In countries where such rights are weak or non-existent, the arbitrary power and special privileges of the elite increase and the power of the common man or woman is diminished. Without the protection of due process, the ordinary citizen is powerless in the face of a state that exists only to perpetuate and strengthen it and/or its elite.
In the Soviet Union, for example, the individual can never say to the state or its officers `this is mine and you cannot take it away from me'. Due process and fundamental justice are but dreams to the residents of the U.S.S.R.
We know there has been a passage of time since that statement was made. However, I think this is a very essential bill. There is a reason the Reform Party has brought this up more than once.