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Canadians Have No Property RightsBy Christopher di Armani |
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Canadians refuse to believe the facts. We have no property rights. Our federal government has and continues to deliberately refuse us this most basic of human rights. Don't believe me? Ask Manitoba farmer Andy McMechan. Or Saskatchewan farmers Boyd Charles, Norman Calhoun, Lyman Carpenter, Douglas Domeij, Richard Fedirko, Orlin Hector, John King, Blake Kotylak, Dwight Lischka, Arthur Mainil, Stephanie Mainil, Mark Melle, Joey Mizu, Devin Raynard, Don Raynard, Ivan Sakundiak, Robbie Shaw, Sheldon Wallin, Kerry Ziola, Donald Skoretx or Gregory Rupcich. Each was convicted and sentenced to jail. Their crime? They dared sell the grain they grew on their own property. Sound asinine? It is. Their misfortune was to be western grain farmers. Had they lived on the correct side of that magical line, the Manitoba-Ontario border, they would have been praised by the same government that jailed them. That's right. Selling grain is only a crime in western Canada. In the East, it's perfectly legal. So out west we send farmers to jail for doing what their colleagues in Ontario and Quebec do daily. A Short History Lesson In 1982, then Prime Minister Trudeau gave Canadians a "made-in-Canada" constitution. By design, indeed by Trudeau's intention, that constitution did not contain the right to private property. A nation that prides itself internationally as a champion of human rights denies the most basic of those human rights to its own citizens. It's not as though there have been no attempts to rectify this problem. The problem is the federal government likes it this way. I can see your head shaking now. You don't believe me. Why, you say, would our own government WANT to deny us the basic human right of private property? It makes taking our property so much easier that way. On May 29, 1995, then-Reform MP Garry Breitkreuz introduced a private members bill (Bill C-284) to Parliament. His desire was to rectify the gross error of omission made by Trudeau's Constitution. The Liberal government of the day voted down the bill. In 1997, MP Breitkreuz introduced amendments to the Canadian Wheat Board Act, so that prairie grain farmers would no longer be jailed for selling their own property, i.e. grain they produced by their own labour. His amendments were defeated by the Liberal government. On December 11, 1997 MP Breitkreuz re-introduced his private members bill to protect the property rights of all Canadians. The Liberal government of the day defeated the proposed legislation. He introduced his private members bill to protect property rights a third time, October 30, 1998. Its fate? The Liberal government killed the bill on December 6, 1999. Thankfully, Breitkreuz is does not give up easily. Breitkreuz introduced his bill to give Canadians the right to private property a fourth time on November 21, 2002. Once again, the Liberal government voted that right down. In a decision that garnered very little press, the Manitoba Court of Appeal noted "the right to ‘enjoyment of property' is not a constitutionally protected, fundamental part of Canadian society." Is your blood boiling yet? No? Perhaps after you hear what the Supreme Court of Canada said. "Parliament has the right to expropriate property, even without compensation, if it has made its intention clear and (in the act) Parliament's expropriative intent is clear and unambiguous." So, the government can do what it wants with OUR property, just so long as it states its intention to do so "clearly"? How's that blood temperature now? The irony of all this? China, the country Canada has decried for decades as a human rights violator, has just enshrined the right to private property into its constitution. "Private property obtained legally shall not be violated." Pretty clear statement from a nation we Canadians have called "one of the worst violators of human rights" on the planet. MP Garry Breitkreuz still hasn't given up. Recently he stood up in Parliament and demanded of Prime Minister Paul Martin, "Why doesn't our Prime Minister recognize what China has just recognized -- that, property rights are the foundation of a strong, vibrant economy?" Because Martin, like successive Liberal prime minister's before him, likes it that way.
Christopher di Armani is a freelance writer based in Lytton, BC. He can be contacted at Christopher@diArmani.com.
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