PROPERTY and the CHARTER

The subject of PROPERTY is inseparable from the PERSON who owns it.

Words matter.

By redefining one word, can you change how and when the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be applied to defend and protect individual citizens from harm and aggression?

Put another way, is Constitutional Law maleable and has it been unintentionally subject to cultural shifts in language, or worse, the intentional manipulation of words to willfully achieve specific legal and political ends?

The one word I want to redefine is ‘person’ so that it includes ‘ownership of self’ as a legal dimension of ‘personal property’.

Why is this important?

The legal notion of Private Property was intentionally omitted from the Charter. This constitutional document only defines our social rights and freedoms as noted in the Government of Canada’s web site:

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

a) freedom of conscience and religion;

b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

d) freedom of association.

The web site also says this about the Charter:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms sets out those rights and freedoms that Canadians believe are necessary in a free and democratic society.

The Charter is one part of the Canadian Constitution. The Constitution is a set of laws containing the basic rules about how our country operates. For example, it states the powers of the federal, and provincial and territorial governments in Canada.

The Constitution is the supreme law of Canada; all other laws must be consistent with the rules set out in it. If they are not, they may not be valid. Since the Charter is part of the Constitution, it is the most important law we have in Canada.

However, the rights and freedoms in the Charter are not absolute. They can be limited to protect other rights or important national values.

Person is subservient to the Collective!?

The will of the majority always supersedes the will of the individual in so-called “democracies”. 

FORCE (”enforcement”) is required to apply laws to ALL individuals in order to fulfill the will of the majority. The minority must submit to the will of the “majority” or suffer consequences that have been approved by the majority in a system of “bully politics”.

How can anyone consider a system to be “democratic” when only individuals exists in reality. Individuals comprise every human collective that anyone chooses to identify, including the electoral “majority”.

All collectivist terminology is a CONSTRUCT of LANGUAGE. Words like “society”, “community”, “the greater good”, the electoral “majority”, etcetera, are all statistical representations of aggregates of individual persons considered under particular circumstances or by specific characterists. Each construct is used to denote these aggregations according to demographic and cultural characteristics: race, age, gender, ethnicity, faith, nationality, wealth, and more. This is what fuels the prevailing “identify politics” of the modern era as practiced primarily by “progressive”, politically-left adherents.

We humans are fond of characterizing our selves and others according to an endless range of categories so as to establish distinguishable identities. We use these for good purposes, and for bad.

Our system of laws harden these classifications into “do” and “don’t” rules. These rules are created by men and women who are elected by hundreds of thousands of electors - constituents who resides within electoral districts - to represent the will of the majority within their district.

If you are one of the minority who does not agree with the majority on priorities, then your will is not considered. If you hold Libertarian values like me, your will goes permanently unheard and unconsidered, and you are expected to forever obey rules created by the winning politicians. This form of bully politics is often described as “democratic” but feels “autocratic” and dictatorial by anyone whose values do not align with the majority.

How to think about “person”.

The Charter clearly pertains to individual rights and refers to person in its text.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a person as an “individual human being”. It also defines human being is “A person, a member of the human race; a man, woman, or child.”

Clarification of terms.

Difference between person and human offers relevant distinctions to inform our understanding of the Canadian Charter.  Refer to the paragraph:

“The term ‘person’ refers to a being that has certain capacities or attributes. These capacities or attributes are defined differently by different people. However, the most common attribute is someone who consists of life and a soul, and has the capability of conscious thought, i.e. is a sentient being.”

Take note of words “… has certain capacities or attributes.” This denotes the possession of assets as the “properties” of the person, and that those assets are inseparable from the person.

Even the Bible has something to say about personhood according to a prompt to BINGchat:

Human being consisting of body and soul.

The Bible defines a person as a human being consisting of body and soul1. Humans are persons because they are created human, not because of anything they do2. According to the Bible, human beings are created in a very particular way with three parts: a spirit, a soul, and a body3. Humans can only have a proper understanding of themselves as they have a proper understanding of God4. In the Bible, man is regarded as personal, although it was only gradually that the full importance of the individual as distinct from the nation was realized5.

It is worth noting that the opening sentence of the Charter states:

“Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:”

PERSON comprehensively defined.

What if PERSON was legally defined as an “individual human being possessing body, mind and will applicable voluntarily, and with purpose, to sustain and enhance life.” Such a definition would be consistent with Natural Law as defined by Canada Commons.

THIS DEFINITION would invoke INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS within the scope of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Every constitutional lawyer in Canada would have a basis to apply the Charter to property issues for the first time.

I will share this idea with Shawn Buckley, a well known and respected Canadian Constitutional lawyer, to ask his opinion. Stay tuned.