Canada is a prosperous county and one critical reason for that is our mostly secure approach to property rights. For example, when governments expropriate private property for some public purpose, a well-established tradition in law exists whereby owners are compensated. No one expects someone to give up their home for free to facilitate a highway expansion.
property rights
March 18, 2013
3:00AM
Existing attempts to measure economic freedom have long been imperfect blurring various definitions of freedom, using subjective rather than objective measures, and either failing to account for economic freedom or focusing exclusively on it. That helps explain the rationale behind the Fraser Institutes new book, Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom.
November 3, 2012
3:00AM
In the debate over whether the partially state-owned energy company, Chinas CNOOC, should be given the go-ahead by Ottawa to take over Calgary-based Nexen, there is the danger that the discussion will be cast in an adversarial east-west context.
October 12, 2012
2:00AM
The federal and B.C. governments have always claimed that native land claims would never affect private property, that First Nations governments would never have veto power over private land.
Right. Tell that to a retired 70-something couple from Vancouver Island, Gary and Fran Hackett, who face a Caledonia-like entanglement with their land. Their property in the Marpole neighbourhood in the City of Vancouver, in their family for almost five decades, has just been frozen. That was due to the discovery of assumed aboriginal bones.
July 22, 2012
2:00AM
In the midst of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan used to say you could tell a lot about a country by what happens when its gates are flung open. If people flowed in, it was an obviously desirable nation; if they ran out, not so much.
Reagan meant it as a criticism of collectivist countries, where almost every sort of freedom and opportunity was restricted, including economic, religious, media, and freedom of association (i.e., to belong to a union or some other group).
May 13, 2012
2:00AM
Many people often look to Europe as an example of what Aristotle called the good lifethink of their pleasant cities and obvious regard for art and history. But heres something else Canadians can learn from Europe: how many governments there are much better at balancing the rights of private property owners with regulations that restrict property and lessen its value.
May 10, 2012
4:18PM