by Klaus Rohrich
November 15, 2004
The idea recently floated by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty (aKa Norman Bates) of establishing a greenbelt in the Golden Horseshoe has a great deal of merit in that development in this area has run rampant. However, the methodology he proposes to employ is a thing more suited to Zimbabwe than Canada.
as I understand the Premier’s intentions, he hopes to legislate a ban on further land development on a strip of land running roughly from Peterborough in the east to Niagara at the other end. The defined area is roughly the size of algonquin Park. The one problem is, the land in question is mostly privately held and the Premier’s plan sounds an awful lot like expropriation.
Dalton has assured us that nothing could be further from the truth, that it really isn’t "expropriation" in that the land owners will not be compensated financially and will be allowed to keep title to their land. They just can’t use it for anything other than public parkland or farmland. Then again, he also assured Ontarians that the so-called "Health Premium" wasn’t a tax, but a premium, until government unions demanded the government pay the "premium" as outlined in their collective bargaining agreement. at that point it became a tax.
I guess that’s the trouble with being honesty-challenged. You can talk out of both sides of your mouth simultaneously and believe that the conflicting things you are saying are all true. Kind of like the piece of paper that has "the statement on the other side of this paper is true" on one side and "the statement on the other side of this paper is false" on the other. It’s confusing, but only great minds steeped in the finer points of political gobbledygook are capable of discerning these greater truths.
Dalton’s attempt at expropriating people’s land without "expropriating" it will certainly result in a lot of court challenges against the legislation. In the final analysis I believe the courts will ultimately side with the landowners, despite the fact that Canada’s Charter of Rights does not guarantee the right to own property. (That wily Pierre really knew what he was doing) But then, I’ve been wrong before, especially in light of the fact that under the Charter people also have the right to free speech and freedom of assembly, so long as they say politically correct things and belong to politically correct organizations, such as the Tamil Tigers.
anyway, back to the more pressing issue of expropriating people’s land: Mark Parsons, head of the Greater Toronto Homebuilders’ association, said that if this legislation is enacted, it will increase the price of homes in the Greater Toronto area. I would guess that Mr. Parsons is a master of understatement, as I believe it will increase home prices so dramatically that a crisis will ensue. While I am no economist, even I know the laws of supply and demand. When supply is low and demand is high, prices skyrocket. When demand is low and supply high, then the obverse happens. It’s possible that this legislation, if passed, will create a lot more homelessness than currently exists.
The reason for this is that in addition to driving house prices up, the legislation will also affect rents. People currently living in newer, unregulated apartments will have such a steep increase in rent because of the artificial housing shortage created by Mr. Mugabe, …er McGuinty, that they’ll be forced to move to Nathan Phillips Square along with the rest of the homeless. These nouveau homeless will not be happy puppies and they will express their unhappiness during the next election, as will all the landowners, building trades, realtors, etc. who are thrown out of work because of poor home sales. But then, no one ever accused Dalton of thinking things through, particularly when a politically expedient solution to a complex problem arises.
So maybe Dalton McGuinty’s non-expropriative expropriation is a good thing. Imagine: it will create a really strong real estate market in about oh, say four year’s time and it will be just another really good reason to send the Liberals packing.