--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is property ownership a right?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to the years-long housing boom, a giant concentration of wealth in this country in now in a single asset: residential real estate.

An aging population, real estate-rich and financial asset-poor, and yet without the legally-protected ability to defend that real estate wealth. This could be a recipe for disaster, and for many Canadians, it already has been.

How is it we do not have the right to own property?

It is unique in Canada's history right now that this right is not guaranteed. The Magna Carta of 1215 gave it to our British ancestors, and that was followed by the English Bill of Rights in 1627, which entrenched the right. So did the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Canada signed. And the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights added further protection.

It has only been since the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982 that this right has not been enjoyed by Canadians. In other words, Canadians do not have recourse to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms if their land or home is seized by the government or its agent. Governments do not create rights they just take them away. And this fundamental, historic right was brushed off by politicians of the time more than 20 years ago as they horse-traded to get a new constitutional deal.

And here we are, 23 years later. Some Canadians might say - well - what's the big deal? We've not gotten along for all this time without giving people the right to own their own real estate, so why fret? Isn't the system, and the country, getting along just fine as is?

Well, just ask all the farmers who lost their land - 97,000 acres of it - when the feds decided to expropriate, and build Mirabel Airport outside of Montreal. A bad idea from the start, the airport is now closed to passenger traffic and probably will fade away entirely. A citizens group is now fighting to get 11 thousand acres back - 30 years later - and they do not have a legal leg to stand on.

Ask people who bought forest lots on Galiano Island in British Columbia, only to see the local government pass bylaws at first preventing them from building on their own land and eventually forcing restrictive and bizarre land use that collapsed property values.

Ask the guy who bought beachfront property in Nova Scotia only to see the provincial government declare his real estate a heritage site and prevent him from even walking his dog there.

Ask my former neighbour, ex-NHLer Louie Fontinato, whose working farm was expropriated by the local conservation authority, demolished and then flooded - all without enough compensation to allow him to carry on.

Now ask the thousands and thousands of landowners across southern Ontario about what the province is doing to them with its new Greenbelt Legislation. In the municipality where I live, the Town of Caledon, 75 per cent of all of the land has been frozen from future development overnight - with the barest of public consultation and in a process that lasted just 45 days.

In support of its move, the Ontario government has provided no planning report, no transportation study, no environmental study to support claims this will improve the life of Ontarians or stop urban sprawl. But why do they need to do so, when the people their laws are directly affecting have no legal rights to defend themselves?

There is no need to prove its claims in a court of law, since no court will ever hear the case.

Let's face it: giving people more rights enriches them. Any democracy is freer when people have more rights. Property rights are human rights. This is something that makes every individual stronger it is a gift from the government of Canada to the people of Canada. It is a measure of trust and responsibility.

Restoring property rights makes government more accountable when property is taken away or materially affected. It guarantees people will have access to the due process of law and the possibility of fair compensation.

Restoring property rights will not allow people to pollute, to ignore rent control laws, to bear firearms, to challenger pay equity, or to override our existing concepts of matrimonial property as defined by Family Law legislation. Those critics on the political left who make these irresponsible and frightening accusations have no evidence to support their arguments. They are calling on conjecture and what-if scenarios which have not been substantiated by legal precedent in any of the countries, such as the United States, which have constitutional protection for property rights.