Mr. Speaker, I hope you will extend my time because that was simply an abuse of privilege.
Mr. Bryan, with the help of the National Citizens' Coalition, appealed his conviction on the grounds that it violated his property rights as guaranteed in the Canadian Bill of Rights passed by this parliament in 1960. On February 4, 1999, the Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled against David Bryan's right to sell his own grain that he grew on his land.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal stated on page 14 of its ruling and this is a key part of my argument to refer this to committee:
Section 1(a) of the Canadian Bill of Rights, which protects property rights through a “due process” clause, was not replicated in the Charter, and the right to “enjoyment of property“ is not a constitutionally protected, fundamental part of Canadian society.
Can anyone who is listening to this debate or who reads the record of this debate believe these words came out of a Canadian court of law? I repeat “the right to 'enjoyment of property' is not a constitutionally protected, fundamental part of Canadian society.” It is about time we listened to what this judge had to say. He is not the only one to state it.
This ruling was confirmed by constitutional expert Peter Hogg in 1992 in his book Constitutional Law of Canada , Third Edition. Citation 44.9 on page 1030 states:
The omission of property rights from section 7 [of the Charter] greatly reduces its scope. It means that section 7 affords no guarantee of compensation or even a fair procedure for the taking of property by the government. It means that section 7 affords no guarantee of fair treatment by courts, tribunals or officials with power over purely economic interests of individuals or corporations.
Professor Hogg also wrote:
The product is a section 7 in which liberty must be interpreted as not including property, as not including freedom of contract, and, in short, as not including economic liberty.
Therefore, without protection of property rights and freedom of contract in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with the court's recent ruling that the Canadian Bill of Rights does not provide any protection whatsoever from the federal government's arbitrary taking of property or infringing on our fundamental economic liberties, I decided it was time for parliament to do something about it.
Amending the charter is a hugely complicated task because it requires a resolution to be passed in the House of Commons and in seven provincial legislatures comprising more than 50% of the population. In past debates the government has argued rather poorly that there is no need to strengthen property rights in federal law, that the Canadian Bill of Rights provides adequate protection of property rights. The Bryan case proves that to be totally wrong on this count.
The bill of rights provides absolutely no protection of property rights and even if the government ignores the David Bryan judgment these rights can be overridden by just saying so in any piece of legislation passed by the House. Canada's foremost constitutional expert and the Manitoba Court of Appeal both agree there is no protection of property rights in federal law.
What is parliament to do? Does it just ignore it as we have been doing for the past decade? I do not think so. That is not an option and that is why I have introduced Motion No. 426.
In December,1948 member states of the United Nations general assembly, including Canada, adopted and proclaimed the universal declaration of human rights. As stated in my motion, among the rights proclaimed in the UN declaration and ratified by Canada was the “right to own property alone as well as in association with others” and not to be arbitrarily deprived thereof.
In 1992 Gudmunder Alfredsson had this to say about Article 17 in his book The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Commentary :
It applies to both the individual and collective forms of property ownership. The absence of the limitations proposed in the legislative debate [leading up to the final draft] is noteworthy; there are no references in the article to conformity with State laws, personal property or decent living. The right is not an absolute one, however, it is foreseen that persons can be deprived of their property under circumstances...The term “arbitrarily” would seem to prohibit unreasonable interferences by States and taking of property without compensation.
The evidence is clear. This is an issue that needs to be fully examined by the committee. I would like at this point, for those who have listened carefully to my arguments, to request that the House consent unanimously to make my motion votable.
I have clearly indicated why this is a violation of my rights. I have had four opportunities to bring this to the House. I think it is about time we had an opportunity to fully debate this issue and vote on the it. I am asking simply to refer it to committee.