Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here today to support the member for Comox-Alberni on the motion he has brought before the House.
This issue was probably one of the most important ones in terms of drawing Reformers from western Canada into the Reform Party in the first place. People recognized from one example after another of what had happened in their area that this was necessary and that property rights in fact should be enshrined in the Constitution. That is of course a Reform policy although it is not fully what we are dealing with here today.
I will start by repeating what this motion is about for those watching or listening or for those who may read this in the future:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government provide a greater measure of protection for individual property rights by amending the Canadian Bill of Rights to read:
"1. Subject to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, every person has the right to the enjoyment of that person's personal and real property and the right not to be deprived thereof unless that person
(a) is accorded a fair hearing in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, and
(b) is paid fair compensation in respect of the property, and the amount of that compensation is fixed impartially, and is paid within a reasonable amount of time after the person is deprived of their property.
- Any person whose rights, as set out in section 1, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances".
That is what we are debating today. I will talk a bit about the importance of having property rights clearly defined.
Property rights are really the cornerstone of human freedom, as some of my colleagues have expressed. These rights mean freedom from arbitrary interference in one's life by government. Property rights depend on the notion that you own yourself and your labour.
In 1690 John Locke wrote:
The great and chief end of men-putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.
In 1790 Edmund Burke wrote:
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice.
Burke recognized clearly the importance of property rights.
A property rights guarantee ensures that government can only take your property under three very limiting conditions. First, the taking of your property must be for public use. Second, the taking of your property must be through due process of the law. Third, the taking of your property must be with just and timely compensation.
Various polls and surveys have demonstrated clearly that Canadians support a property rights guarantee. A poll commissioned by the Canadian real estate board in 1987 found that 81 per cent of Canadians considered property rights very or fairly important and that the Constitution should be amended to include property rights.
In 1992 a Gallup poll demonstrated that 87 per cent of respondents characterized the fundamental right to own property as either very important or important, and 87 per cent said that it should be in the charter of rights and freedoms.
To make this point stronger, a higher percentage of Quebecers supported a constitutional guarantee of property rights than supported a constitutional guarantee of distinct society. This issue is certainly important to Quebecers.
The Prime Minister also supports a property rights guarantee. One of my colleagues brought this up and it is worth mentioning again. During a presentation to the provinces on including property rights in the charter of rights and freedoms he stated: "In deciding which rights should be included in this charter, we have selected only those which we feel reflect the central values of our society. Each of these rights we have listed"-and that includes property rights-"is an essential ingredient for the charter and all are rights which all Canadians should have regardless of wherever they live in our country".
That was spoken by the Prime Minister a few years ago. It is interesting that now his government seems to be holding back on its support and is speaking against a first step toward providing for property rights in a meaningful way.
There are other countries which have enshrined property rights in their constitutions. Canada is in the good company of the United States, Germany, Italy and Finland. The fifth amendment of the United States constitution limits federal powers and expressly provides for a right to compensation. The fifth amendment states that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use without due compensation.
The 14th amendment of the American constitution stipulates that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of the law.
Property rights were not included in our charter mainly because of the objections of the provinces of Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The reason is important to note. These provinces felt that it was an attempt by the federal government to intrude into provincial jurisdiction over property and civil rights granted to them by section 92(13) of the British North America Act.
The Canadian Bill of Rights does include property rights, but the guarantee of protection is minimal at best. There is no requirement in Canadian constitutional law that removal of private property be covered by a fair procedure to deal with compensation to the owner and there is no guarantee of fair treatment by the courts, tribunals or officials who have the power over individuals or corporations. Without the rights of due process and fair compensation individual property rights are meaningless.
The power of government in this area is unlimited. Any valid statute can expressly state that no compensation is payable when property is expropriated. That is the very thing which Canadians do not want.
How would Motion No. 205, presented by my colleague from Comox-Alberni, improve the current situation? Motion No. 205 proposes to amend the Canadian Bill of Rights by adding two new sections. The first section would allow citizens the right to their property unless the person receives a fair hearing in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. The second section gives the individual property owner the right to fair compensation for the property within a reasonable amount of time.
Since the Canadian Bill of Rights applies only to federal law and operations, this motion would avoid the provincial concerns raised during the debate on including property rights in the charter. However, since this legislation applies only to federal jurisdiction, clearly similar protection is needed at the provincial level. I would strongly support the provinces making similar changes in their legislation to protect property rights.
I would like to give a couple of examples of things that have gone wrong because there is not proper protection of property rights. The first example would not be protected if the bill is passed, but I would like to mention it anyway. This is something which happened in Calgary. I have had this story related to me on a couple of different occasions, so I believe it is worth mentioning. It affected the people who mentioned it to me in a very negative way.
Calgary had a green zone around the city which was protected by law. When this happened there was no compensation as a result of the damage to land prices. There was no expropriation on the part of government. It just declares that this zone would be a green zone and that caused property values to drop dramatically. People who had property within that zone in many cases, people who had talked to me, lost much of their life savings. It was clearly unfair and I think it is important that we have legislation that would protect against this.
The second very important example has been demonstrated already and explained by some of our members, although I think it would be worth repeating, and it has to do with the rights under Bill C-68 to take guns from people without any compensation.
From the gun collectors I have talked to, in a couple of cases gun collectors had tied their life savings up in their collection. This law has destroyed the value of that collection with no compensation. These examples point out the need for this to pass the House. I ask all members in the House to support my colleague and to vote in favour of this private member's motion.