I have said many times in the last several weeks that Canada provides instruction regarding the Statist agenda being practiced by so-called “liberals” in the US.
Another fine example related to eminent domain from Angry in the Great White North. Excerpt:
…Normally in a situation like this, Canadians wonder what such a decision in the US might mean to them. But in this case, Canada has already reached the logical endpoint of the path being embarked on by the US Supreme Court. This is because, in what comes as a surprise to many Canadians, we do not enjoy the right to private property at all. As early as 1960, the Bill of Rights (a statutory piece of legislation) allowed Canadians the right to enjoy their property, but gave them no fundamental right to use it. It gave them the right to expect due process of law when the government decided to appropriate the land, but it did not give them the right to expect compensation.
Two decades later, when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was being written, the situation was not corrected. This was a deliberate decision made by Pierre Trudeau in 1982 to help bring the socialist New Democratic Party on board with his constitutional project. The provincial premiers were also wary of giving Canadians the constitutional right to property ownership that would interfere with their ability to define the use of land not owned by the state, or with their ability to appropriate the land outright.
This seems to fit right in with SCOTUS majority thinking that foreign law should override our Constitution.
Torontonians should cast their memories back to the resurgence of Cabbagetown and ask whether, if people were fully aware of the Government’s ability to sieze property, private individuals would have assumed the risk. When property right are in fact illusory, the risk is much higher.
It’s only the false presumption that Government repects property rights that makes such private redevelopment possible.
Property rights are now essentially arbitrary on both sides of the 49th parallel, but it does the Government no good for people to be reminded of it.
The effect of Kelo in Canada, as in the US, will be reduced property values.
The Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain is one of the more frightening constitutional challenges of my lifetime. As occurred with the “right to privacy”, the reported logic of the Court’s majority would not pass a college class in reasoning, and again the irrelevants have been used as cornerstones for rewriting the law to some expanded notion of “public purpose”.Now that economic development for the rich guys in the clubhouse has been defined as constituting a public use, God help us all. This is judicial activism; this is judicial piracy.