Undoing the 20th Century

Yes, Greg, that's exactly what they mean:

ii) A Conservative Government will enact legislation to ensure that full, just and timely compensation will be paid to all persons who are deprived of personal or private property as a result of any federal government initiative, policy, process, regulation or legislation. (emphasis mine)

Does this mean that the Feds would have to compensate private health clinics if they they restrict funding to public clinics? Would they have to compensate Oil companies if the Feds change the energy policy? I have been looking around, but can not find any concrete examples of what is meant by enshrining property rights in the Charter. Thoughts?

This is why it worries me when the Conservatives say they want to enshrine private property rights in the constitution - because this formulation would be probably the broadest possible interpretation of private property rights in the world, if it happened. Broader even than the US Constitution. Don't believe me? William Greider wrote a piece for the Nation some years back called "Invalidating the 20th Century" detailing how US right wing activists want to enshrine the "takings doctrine" (as it's called in US nutbar circles) in law:

The last great confrontation over property rights occurred at the dawn of the twentieth century, when modern corporations emerged with national scope and scale and awesome new influence over society. A broad tide of reformers, led by labor, arose in opposition, demanding new social and economic laws to protect people and social values, but the federal judiciary blocked their way. The Supreme Court relentlessly defended business and the old order--the "classical legal doctrine" of limited government and laissez-faire economics. It spoke most defiantly in the Lochner decision of 1905, in which the Justices threw out an early New York State labor-reform law that required a ten-hour day and safer conditions for bakery workers. The law, they ruled, unconstitutionally deprived bakery owners of their property rights. Over the next three decades, the logic of Lochner was applied to invalidate more than 200 state and federal statutes--the progressive income tax, minimum-wage laws, health and safety codes, workers' right to organize independent unions and other public measures that have since become common features of US governance....

In our era, conservatives think they have finally found a way to close the gates. This past March in Chicago, the Federalist Society organized a lawyers' forum with a provocative title--"Rolling Back the New Deal"--and its star attraction was Richard Epstein, law professor at the University of Chicago and intellectual lion of the right. Epstein's theory of "regulatory takings" galvanized the movement fifteen years ago when his book Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain first appeared, describing an ingenious new constitutional interpretation designed to rein in modern government. Regulations, he argued, should be properly understood as "takings" under the Fifth Amendment... so government must pay those businesses or individuals whose property value is in some way diminished by public actions.

If this definition of private property is adopted, it would essentially spell the end of any kind of progressive, activist role for government in Canada.

If that sounds alarmist to you, it shouldn't. The advocates of the "taking" doctrine know exactly what it means, and aren't shy about it.

"Most of economic regulation is stupid.... What possible reason is there for regulating wages and hours?" Epstein said. "If my takings doctrine prevails, you have no minimum-wage laws. That's fine. You'd have an OSHA a tenth of the size. That's fine too. You'd have no antidiscrimination laws for privileged employees, which would be a godsend." Does Professor Epstein wish to restore the Lochner era of 1905? "Well, God bless, of course," he said. "But why do you think that's socially irresponsible?" In fact, he portrays his approach as moderate compromise because, unlike the Lochner doctrine, it would not invalidate the regulatory laws that legislatures enact. He would merely make the public pay for them. "We will allow the majority to have its way so long as it's willing to buy off its dissenters at a fair valuation," Epstein told the libertarian magazine Reason.

Of course, to a limited extent corporations already have these rights under NAFTA, but entrenching this model in the constitution would be a death blow to Canadian progressivism.

Think about that for a moment - the Conservatives don't just want to change the laws. They want to amend the constitution so that health care, Kyoto, any decent act by government would be illegal. This isn't about winning an election, it's about ending any attempt at social justice for the forseeable future.

There are days where I'm really very glad that the Constitution is the third rail of Canadian politics.