By Jamie MacMaster
 
Ah, late summer in rural Ontario.  As we contend with the hordes of circling deer flies, pests of a different sort are meeting in air-conditioned rooms to decide what form of miseries they will inflict upon us in the post-October-provincial-election world.  I feel like a barren-ground caribou who has just been asked to make a choice: What would you rather, a four-year plague of black flies, or mosquitoes? 
 
Unlike their winged brethren who swarm us and take their chances with the swatter, our political tormentors first have to lure us to the ballot box with the prospect of never-to-be fulfilled prophecies: checks on government behaviour, and cheques in the mail.  The subtleties emerge in the respective deliveries.
 
For example, on the property rights front, the Conservatives have lapsed into the lingo of mystics and dreamers in the hope that we rural rubes will be satiated.  They recognize that McGuinty’s biggest liability is his tendency to say “we will” when something less substantial would suffice.
 
“If future policies change the existing use of your property – you should have the ability to apply for some form of compensation.  If government intends to change the existing or permitted use of your property, you should receive advance notice…and if a future government dramatically hurts your ability and your family’s ability to earn a living, there should be an opportunity to appeal.”
 
Yes, of course.  And no child should ever go hungry, and you should never have to grow old, and I should have known better with a girl like you / That I would love everything that you do /  And I do, hey hey hey, and I … Oh, sorry about that.  But you see how easy it is to get carried away by that ought-to-be lullaby. 
 
Apparently forgetting that Mike Harris’s successes came from straight talk and firm action, the Conservative’s stance on property rights has about the same degree of commitment as Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding vows, but at least they (sort of) mentioned it.  The Liberals can’t.  And they’re hoping against hope that the questions about fully compensating rural landowners won’t hit the floors at the all-candidates debates.  Because if that happens, their track record (no compensation provisions in either the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act) pretty well forces them to come out and say – à la Paul Martin – that they are against the concept.  And that would probably work out as well in rural Ontario for Dalton in October ‘07 as it did for Paul in January 2006.
 
With CREA’s most recent membership survey showing that property rights are the top priority item (scoring 8.5 out of 10) for Canadian Realtors, is there anything Realtors can do to bring property rights to the forefront during the fall election campaign?  Sure there is.  How about a simple question, posed to all candidates, during the election run-up:
 
“The Canadian Real Estate Association, Landowner Associations and farm organizations have identified the lack of property rights legislation as a major concern.  Will you act upon voters’ demands for the immediate creation of effective property rights legislation that will over-ride existing provincial laws and provide our citizens with full, fair and timely compensation for any restrictions of those rights?”
 
Simple, eh?  And the answers are very simple too: Yes, or No.  Anything other than a Yes should be considered a No.
 
And the substance of “effective” property rights isn’t nuclear physics either.  At the very least it means this:
 
· Land-use re-designation or land expropriation must not be arbitrary.  A pressing public need must be demonstrated and the property-owner must be able to contest the action in the courts.
 
· Landowners must be entitled to full and timely compensation for loss of land-use or loss of land.  Value would best be determined by a panel of peers.
 
· Government entry onto private property must only occur (a) with the landowner’s informed consent, or (b) under exigent circumstances (emergency), or (c) under the authority of a warrant.
So, we have a golden opportunity to take charge of our future – and the good thing about the process is that it is not entirely self-serving.  Would our real estate community benefit from effective property rights?   Absolutely, but, so would everyone else – save and except imperial politicians and bureaucrats, and subsidized environmental non-government organizations.  They are dead set against any notion of full and timely compensation for landowners, on the grounds that the cost to the public would be prohibitive.
 
And for those groups, any cost is prohibitive.  Because as it stands now – just like drunks slurping beer at a free bar – they have been acquiring land to further their own interests at no cost at all. They’ll continue to do so as long as it’s free.  It’s time to separate what the public supposedly needs from what it actually needs.  It’s time to put up the price list.
 
Jamie MacMaster is a salesperson with Rickerd Realty in North Glengarry, Ont., and vice-president of the Ontario Landowners, a rural property rights advocacy organization with 16,000 memberships across Ontario. Email [email protected].