The right

You should know by now Canadians have no protected right to own property. It’s not in the Charter of Rights, and was removed from Constitutional protection 42 years ago.

Americans have it. Folks there can use the courts when governments overreach. The doctrine of eminent domain means private lands can still be taken for public use, but only with just compensation and, if the owner objects, only after a judicial ruling.

In Canada public authorities possess the legal right to obtain your property for public use as long as the federal or provincial government approves the acquisition. It could be the city, a transit authority, a power utility or conservation body. Your ability to stop such an act is restricted.

But the deeper, wider threat may be the zealous, kneejerk and often rash actions of governments since Covid brought a ‘housing crisis’ to this land. In the past four years the idea that Canadians ever could be the masters of their own real estate has been squished. The state’s now all over property like a fungus, responding clumsily to a market that cheap debt and FOMO forever changed.

It’s about to get worse, too.

Consider what’s become the norm.

• In several major cities you must sleep in your bed at least 183 nights a year or face a debilitating ’underutilized house’ tax.
• You cannot buy, then sell a property within 365 days anywhere in Canada without filing a report, spelling out the circumstances, and being stripped of any profit, which is added to taxable income.
• In BC, a sale of your own property within two years will mean up to 20% tax on any gain, in addition to the federal hit.
• The national government has coerced city after city to end the exclusionary zoning that protected property owners and values. It is now open season for developers or others to build multiplexes on single-family lots, regardless of the neighborhood impact.
• In Nova Scotia anyone buying who does not become a permanent resident must pay the highest land transfer tax in Canada – 5% of the purchase price.
• The ‘speculation’ tax in BC is aimed at punishing those with secondary or recreational properties.
• Covid non-eviction laws and pro-tenant tribunals have made it possible for renters to withhold payment and to remain occupants. Landlords can be completely handcuffed from taking back their own units, even having to prove categorically when they wish to move in themselves (as recently documented here).
• Canada has capriciously banned non-residents from buying property for five years, despite no statistical evidence they caused price escalation. Non-citizens who have owned and used Canadian homes for years, even decades, now must pay a stiff annual tax.
• Every single time a property is sold, that sale must be documented on your income tax filing. Over the past eight years Ottawa has collected massive reams of data on residential real estate, which some fear will help establish a coming wealth tax on unrealized capital gain/equity.

So, this sampling shows a precedent has clearly been established. Governments at all levels are comfortable with dictating how you use a property, layering on tax for societal purposes, dictating how and when you sell, altering zoning that affects you – without notice, punishing additional ownership, telling you who you may sell to, preventing access to a leased unit you own and where you can move without penalty.

What’s next? Levies for unused bedroom or excessive square footage? Taxes based on the growth of equity you had nothing to do with?

It’s worth knowing in addition to having no charter right to own real estate, the federal government has determined that housing is a human right. That happened five years ago, with Trudeau’s National Housing Strategy Act. It commits governments and its agents to reform laws and policies based on this right and calls for the ‘progressive realization’ of it. Two months ago the federal Housing Advocate, Marie-Josée Houle (a czar position created in 2019), told all provinces to adopt legislation enshrining the right to housing.

Said Houle: “We need a human rights-based approach to housing that includes meeting with and listening to people without homes and focusing on getting them housing that meets their needs, rather than deciding what’s best for homeless people without their input and forcing them into stopgap measures, such as shelters, that they don’t want to live in. It also includes providing heat, electricity and bathrooms for people living in homeless encampments if adequate housing is not available. It’s a commitment to work from the recognition that homelessness is a systemic issue and people are homeless because governments of all levels have failed them.”

Society should care for the vulnerable. Nobody should be on the street or living in a tent in your local park. And while housing is a human right in Canada, owning real estate is not. Nor should landlords be forced to house people without being paid, or property owners taxed heavily based on where they sleep.

This is the law in Canada, by the way:

It is declared to be the housing policy of the Government of Canada to
* (a) recognize that the right to adequate housing is a fundamental human right affirmed in international law;
* (b) recognize that housing is essential to the inherent dignity and well-being of the person and to building sustainable and inclusive communities;
* (c) support improved housing outcomes for the people of Canada; and
* (d) further the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing as recognized in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Based on this, tenants-rights groups are fighting for protection simply because renters can’t afford the rent. That would forever end evictions. It’s the same sentiment as blaming government for homelessness, rather than the choices made by individuals.

All Canadians deserve support. But the war on property must stop.

About the picture: “Liam overlooking Green Bay (Lunenburg County) Nova Scotia!” writes David. “Thank you (and Dorothy) for being you! Your joint contribution to the precision of thought and the drudgery of work has , and continues to be, an inspiration for all ! With sincere thanks and well deserved respect.”

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