moved:
That the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights fully examine the effectiveness of property rights protection for Canadian citizens as provided in the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and report back to the House whether or not the federal laws protecting property rights need to be amended in order to comply with the international agreements Canada has entered into, including Article 17 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states: “1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”.
Mr. Speaker, this is the fourth time since 1997 that I have brought forth legislative proposals in an attempt to strengthen property rights in Canadian law.
On each of the four occasions my private member's bill and now my private member's motion have been declared non-votable. This is a regrettable situation. It is a serious infringement of our democratic rights and a violation of my rights as a member of parliament.
On three previous occasions I introduced well-researched, expertly drafted private member's bills to strengthen property rights in federal law. It is somewhat understandable for the government to be reluctant about passing legislation. Today's motion is simply asking the justice committee to fully examine the issue. Where is the risk in that?
I refer members to my motion again. It states:
That the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights fully examine the effectiveness of property rights protection for Canadian citizens as provided in the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and report back to the House whether or not the federal laws protecting property rights need to be amended in order to comply with the international agreements Canada has entered into, including Article 17 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states: “1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”.
I am asking that we refer this to the committee to see whether this needs further strengthening in Canadian law.
I start today's debate by reading a Southam editorial by Murdock Davis that was published in many papers on January 10, 2001. I believe this puts the whole discussion into perspective. It states:
The right to acquire, use, enjoy and transfer property--land, buildings, vehicles, intellectual property and more--is fundamental to liberty. And Canadians are naive to rely on governments to respect ownership rights without a constitutional guarantee, considering the patchy record of those governments.
Aboriginal Canadians on reserves live with the corruption and economic desperation that accompanies insecure rights to property. Citizens of Japanese descent saw their property confiscated and sold during the Second World War. Prairie farmers have been jailed for exporting grain grown on their own land, rather than using the Canadian Wheat Board.
Proposed federal endangered species legislation could mean vast tracts of land are made off-limits to ranchers, farmers, other landowners and resource users, with compensation at the discretion of politicians. It could allow the federal government to intrude into property rights, generally a provincial jurisdiction.
Legislation passed to combat international terrorism authorizes police to seize certain property without normal judicial review.
The Firearms Act compels law-abiding owners to surrender certain firearms, without compensation. (Those who support this because they disapprove of guns should consider: If you favour government authority over property that you don't like, it is harder to fend government off when it comes after yours.)
Private property rights serve two purposes. They have economic utility, and they help guarantee political liberty.
Private property keeps power diffuse. It strengthens individual autonomy from government. Property rights and the protection of contracts form the legal foundation of the free-enterprise system. They create incentives by rewarding owners for wise stewardship and maximizing the productive use of resources.
Nations with the strongest protections for private property have the highest levels of prosperity. Canada is considered to have strong property protections, but it will take vigilance to maintain them.
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads in part: “(No persons shall) be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of the law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”
Canada's Bill of Rights says Canadians have the right to “enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law“. But parliament can override that bill at will, just as it can subvert through statute centuries of common law on property rights. Neither is part of the Constitution.
Entrenching similar language in the Charter would place the right at a higher level. It would give Canadians recourse, through the judiciary. It would place an onus on any government seeking to impinge on such rights to prove it meets the constitutional test of reasonableness.
The provinces were vocal opponents of a property-rights provision when the Charter was drafted: Saskatchewan, to protect its expropriated mineral resources and Crown corporations; P.E.I., to preserve laws limiting non-resident land ownership; Quebec, to safeguard its unique income-security programs. As co-conspirators with the federal government, provincial premiers are hardly reliable guardians of your property.
These limits and some of the examples cited previously might well qualify under the “reasonable limits” provision of our Charter. They are not reasons to oppose Charter protection.
James Madison, a drafter of the U.S. Constitution, recognized that a charter could not totally protect citizens from legislative intrusions. In Canada this would be even truer, because of the “reasonable limits” clause.
But Madison's argument for enshrining such rights was “to establish public opinion in their favour, and arouse the attention of the whole community”.
The attention of Canadians most certainly needs arousing.
To enhance our democracy, Canadian governments should establish a constitutional remedy to the expropriation or undue restriction of property.
Today we are not debating that property rights be entrenched in the charter. I want to make that clear. We are only debating whether there is enough evidence to show that the issue needs to be fully examined by the justice committee.
I have researched this issue for years and I have followed recent court cases over the years. I have a pretty good idea what the conclusion of such a study might be.
The committee would likely conclude that the only property rights protection Canadian citizens have in federal law is the totally ineffective protection provided by the Canadian Bill of Rights, as Saskatchewan farmer David Bryan found out in 1999. Here is his sad story.
David Bryan grew a crop of wheat on his own land. He got into trouble when he tried to sell his wheat for a better price than what the Canadian Wheat Board would pay him. The federal government charged Mr. Bryan with exporting his own grain to the United States without getting an export licence from the monopolistic, dictatorial wheat board.
For violating this Soviet style decree Mr. Bryan spent a week in jail, was fined $9,000 and received a two year suspended sentence.
Mr. Bryan--