Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that on a topic which is so fundamental and so important to our society that we cannot even speak an extra few minutes. We cannot vote on it. We cannot refer it to committee. We cannot even talk about it at length here. That is really unfortunate.
I would like to thank all those members who spoke in support of my motion. I would like to quickly counter some of the arguments that the government put forward as to why we should not refer this to committee.
First, it argued that it is a waste of time of the committee. It argued that it was a waste of time of the House. Many people in the country are very concerned that Bill C-5, a bill that is presently before the House, could clearly be a violation of their rights. We need to discuss these things.
We have provinces in Canada that of course have property rights protection. However we need protection in federal legislation against the violation of the rights of private citizens by the federal government. It is not engrained in our laws, as the federal government has tried to intimate. Nor are they in our charter. Some speakers have said that it is in our charter. If they were to read the charter, it is not in there. Even judges have said in their rulings that we do not have property rights protection in our charter. Provincial and environmental laws could clearly violate this and in fact would have serious implications.
Also, I really want to pick up on something else the government said. It said that it would disrupt the current democratic rights. The only thing it would disrupt is the power of the Prime Minister's Office to legislate at will, violating our fundamental rights. We have built these up over 800 years and they are being seriously violated.
The UN declaration of human rights says “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”. The voters in this country have to know that the federal government, by its own legislation, the legislation government members have supported, condones the arbitrary taking of property in direct contravention of article 17 of the UN declaration of rights. It is hard for Canadians to go to other countries in the world claiming to be defenders of fundamental human rights, when our own country does not defend one of these most fundamental human rights and does not have any constitutional legislative protection for property rights in federal law.
In 1903, Pope Pius X wrote to his bishops. He said:
The right of property, the fruit of labour or industry, or of concession or donation by others, is an incontrovertible natural right; and everybody can dispose reasonably of such property as he thinks fit.
Today we have all heard the proof that our fundamental property rights are under attack and we should not ignore that. Just because a bill is passed in parliament does not make the use and abuse of government force to violate the fundamental property rights and freedom of contract of its citizens a good thing.
I would like to quote one more item here. This is from a book by Ayn Rand entitled Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal . It states:
The concept of a right pertains only to action—specifically to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by others. The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has not right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Czech President Vaclav Havel also hit the nail on the head when he said “Human rights rank above state rights because people are the creation of God”.
My colleagues, property rights are our most important human right because they allow each of us to provide the necessities of life for our families and ourselves.
Therefore, I respectfully request, with the unanimous consent of the House, to refer my motion to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for further consideration. That is the whole intent of this. We need to discuss this further. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the committee examining this. I am sure everyone here would agree. Therefore, I would like to seek that consent.