Mr. Speaker, after Mr. Taylor won his case, the government on the other side got rid of the court challenges program that allowed people access to justice. The government told Mr. Taylor that it was appealing the case to the Federal Court of Appeal and that if it lost in the Federal Court of Appeal, it would appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
That speaks to me about what the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is about. That is a human right. As the charter states:
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
That is not property rights. I am talking about a basic human right, the right to one's citizenship, the right to be here and the right to be protected by the charter.
We will have competition of various rights if we ever put property rights into that section. If we put property rights into that section, what do we have? Do we trade off human rights for property rights? That is what it states under section 7 of the charter. I would ask my friends to read it again. What happens when those rights come into conflict?
The situation in Prince Edward Island was already mentioned by a previous member. Prince Edward Island restricts the ability of non-residents to own land in that province given that the land is under its jurisdiction.
When I was a municipal councillor there were times when the municipal council had to expropriate land for the common good of the community. In each and every case that we expropriated land, the property was assessed on highest and best use and the owner was paid accordingly.
The same thing applies to school boards. The same thing applies to the protection of wetlands where we tell individuals that they are the owners of a wetland that is very important to the ecosystem. In that case, if we were to include property rights in the charter, it would be detrimental to being able to protect environmentally sensitive lands. It is the same thing with native rights. It is through the courts and the charter that we have had some of those rights asserted.
The fact that the court challenges program was eliminated shows us that we are dealing with people who do not have the resources to take those cases to court. I submit that people who have property have many more resources than the individual who is trying to defend his or her individual human rights.