Madam Speaker, I would like to tell you a little story and it starts back around 1215. King John came back from a war in France and his coffers were empty.
He went to his barons and his lords and demanded taxation moneys from them to fill the coffers of the lands so that he could once again wage war. His lords and his barons at that time said that this was inappropriate since they were receiving nothing in return from the king. He was merely taking tax money from them with no benefit derived whatsoever on their part.
They forced the king to sign the Magna Carta in 1215. That is the first time that we know of in modern western history of a recognition of the right to own property. There have been many other precedents since that time.
Particularly noteworthy is when in 1776 a large part of the colonies on this new continent broke away from the United Kingdom and British rule because they did not believe in taxation without representation. They believed in the right to hold and to own property.
The right to hold property has several important components, many of which are touched on in this private member's bill. It recognizes that people have the right to own property, that they use and enjoy it, that they not be deprived of that right without full, just and timely compensation in due process of law. If we do not have a process of law in terms of the recognition of property, it is merely at the caprice, the will of the government.
We all recognize that laws and statutes are important. Indeed that is why we sit here today. That is why we have this assembly, this commons, so that the people of Canada understand the laws, the regulations and the rules. Without that there is anarchy. As a result, point one is that the process of law must be recognized.
Point number two is that people have timely, just and fair compensation. Without fair compensation there is no true value in property or for what people hold. For example, the Bloc member spoke to Bill C-68 and gun registration. It touches on many others such as Bill C-4 and the wheat board act. There have been several others that have been passed in this House that touch on this as well.
If people do not have a sense of fair, timely and just compensation, then indeed things can be taken from them. Something worth a dollar can be taken from them and they are given back merely pennies, a dime or a nickel in exchange for what its true value or worth is.
We see in our history not long ago where that was done. It was the Japanese internment during the second world war. It has been widely recognized in this House I think by all parties that those Japanese Canadians were done a wrong. Why they were done a wrong? Property was taken from them without fair, just and timely compensation, something we recognize happening less than 50 years ago and yet we see the importance of it. We make corrections at a later date.
Another important criterion is that it is transferable because if the property is not saleable or transferable, if I cannot pass my ability to own that property to another, then indeed is it really mine and do I have full jurisdiction over it? This touches on the jurisdictional aspects of private property. Someone should have complete and full jurisdiction of their property in order for it to be considered private property. With this comes the whole idea of transferability. Therefore the state should not be able to regulate or restrict an individual's ability to transfer that property.
We have recent developments in this country that call attention to the whole idea of the right to own property. One of these is the bill of rights which included the right to own property. It is interesting how later on when we tried to constitutionalize this in 1982 there were objections to including the right to own private property in the Constitution which later became the Constitution Act, 1982.
One of the provinces that opposed that right but claimed it was not involved in the final negotiation of the Constitution was Quebec. Prince Edward Island was another. Unfortunately due to the objections of a few of the provinces we did not see the inclusion of private property entrenched in the Constitution of this land.
As a result, what have we seen come down the pipe? Bill C-68, the gun registration act, speaks to this. In Bill C-68 there are provisions for the confiscation of private property. Somebody can own a collection of firearms and be unable to pass that on to their children, nor even be able to sell it. Why? The government has made provisions for confiscation, confiscation without fair compensation. There is not provision for what the real and true value or marketable value of those firearms may be.
Bill C-4, the Canadian Wheat Board Act, which was recently passed in this House, does not recognize the right of farmers to own the grain they produce by the sweat and toil of their own labour, to be able to sell that freely as they so choose. It violates their transferability because they are not allowed to sell that to whomever they wish. It violates their fair, just and timely compensation because they cannot get the full value and true market value of their grain. They are forced to sell it through the wheat board. They are also deprived of what I consider to be a fundamental process of law when we have people who want to exercise the transferability right and the compensation right and yet they are jailed and shackled and deprived of their machinery, fined and cannot work the family farm.
All three of these fundamental tenets have been violated with the Canadian Wheat Board Act. As I say, they were also violated with Bill C-68, the gun registration bill.
It is not that these things have been done in the past because that is water under the bridge. If we form government we hope to repeal some of those pieces of legislation. More than that, this government is also proposing and considering ideas on endangered species legislation. I would like to enlighten the House in terms of what that means.
It means that in a given section of land that somebody may own, if it is found to be that there is a habitat they did not even know existed and they are found to have potentially violated that habitat by driving in, around or near it, they can have that entire section of land quarantined from their use even though they did not know it existed. They can also face heavy fines and jail terms as a result of violating that habitat according to the way the law is defined.
What is that going to encourage? It is going to encourage people to go ahead and decimate their lands and get rid of any of those special habitats rather than to go ahead and protect them with some form of incentive. Using only disincentives will encourage people to go ahead and obliterate those lands and get rid of any of those special habitats that may exist. As a result, I do not think that helps the populations that we are trying to protect in terms of endangered species or any wildlife. I do not think that does anything to help the owners of the property. I also do not think it does anything to help advance the cause the government claims to be supporting.
When we look at all these things, I do not think the government has learned the fundamental lesson. I hope at the next election it pays the price for that. It so sorely does not understand the whole idea of private property. Nothing violates someone so badly as having their private property taken from them. I will speak about a personal experience, the reason my family came to this country.
We were farmers is eastern Europe. We had our farm confiscated and nationalized by the state. We had our granaries taken. We had our land seized. We had our horses taken. We came to Canada to seek the freedom it provides. Unfortunately 100 years later we see what is happening here by not recognizing the right to private property. It chokes me up to think the government is going to come through with this type of thing and not recognize this. It is intolerable. Other governments in the past have paid the price for not recognizing this fundamental right. Shame on them.