It was three years ago that Stephen Harper's Conservative government said it planned to introduce the First Nations Property Ownership Act, which would expand property rights for Canada's Aboriginal people, but we still haven't seen the legislation. Such an Act would...
Property Rights
Property Rights Under Threat
Property Rights Under Threat is a new video from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy that covers the plight of Geophysical Service Incorporated, a Calgary-based business that specializes in seismic exploration. For many years, GSI conducted seismic surveys of the...
Property Rights Video Clip
One of the projects I'm working on at Frontier is a new video clip about a company called GSI - Geophysical Service Incorporated. Joseph Quesnel, one of my colleagues, has written about GSI before. GSI conducts seismic surveys and then sells the data they collect...
2013 International Property Rights Index
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy, along with the Property Rights Alliance, today released the 2013 International Property Rights Index (IPRI). The 2013 Index, measures the protection of property rights in 131 countries. This represents 98 per cent of the world...
Featured News
Our Health Ministers Need to Take a Lesson from Hockey Coaches
Those of you who are tired of my rants about the demise of our once great health system will be pleased to know that this is my last editorial. I am retiring from the BCMJ Editorial Board; currently, I am the longest-serving member (more than 20 years). I have been a...
Zinchuk: Oilpatch Only Spending Half What It Spent in 2014
Back in the lofty, pre-Justin Trudeau government days of 2014, back when oil was booming, pipelines were planned to east and west coasts, and Alberta and Saskatchewan were swimming in money, around $81 billion was spent in capital expenditures (CAPEX) in the Canadian...
Self-Inflicted Poverty
Much of Egypt’s economic problems are directly related to government interference and control that have resulted in weak institutions vital to prosperity. Hernando De Soto, president of Peru’s Institute for Liberty and Democracy (www.ild.org.pe), laid out much of Egypt’s problem in his Wall Street Journal article (Feb. 3, 2011), “Egypt’s Economic Apartheid.” More than 90 percent of Egyptians hold their property without legal title.
Property rights in the Charter?
Property rights are a fundamental part of our legal heritage. The Magna Carta touched on the need to prevent arbitrary action from government in confiscating property.
Likely Consequences of Nenshi’s Civic Tax
Little children used to be encouraged to stay inside the lines when colouring. That was until the wave of postmodernist educators encouraged children to exercise their creativity. No need to bother staying inside the lines.
We know that Calgary’s Mayor Naheed Nenshi is a former educator. Perhaps he is a postmodernist educator too since his proposed new civic tax will encourage people to go outside the Calgary lines.
Nenshi is musing about convincing the feds to add one percent to the GST to Calgary goods and services. The extra money would go to him (the city government), and he will use it to pay for infrastructure such as libraries, recreation areas, and a new public art gallery.
One unintended result of the civic tax may be a fair bonanza for outlying municipalities, should they wish to exercise some fiscal discipline and not emulate Nenshi. Airdrie and Okotoks might be the big winners, with Cochrane and Strathmore perhaps not too far behind.
Egypt’s Economic Apartheid: More than 90% of Egyptians hold their property without legal title. No wonder they can’t build wealth and have lost hope
The headline that appeared on Al Jazeera on Jan. 14, a week before Egyptians took to the streets, affirmed that “[t]he real terror eating away at the Arab world is socio-economic marginalization.”
Victory for property rights and free expression in Ontario
The Canadian Constitution Foundation, a registered charitable organization that fights for Canadian freedoms in the courts, has announced that the Jaworski family has won their case to host the Liberty Summer Seminar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th1K-C0L9H0 The...
Why Haiti Can’t Recover
“Of all the words I’ve read to describe post-quake Haiti, the most apt is “dystopian.” Haiti is not only the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, it is also the most wretched and dysfunctional. By nearly every measure — stability of civil society, corruption, GDP, per capita income — Haiti is in the bottom 10% of nations worldwide.”
Common Sense is the Point
I am personally not worried about citizens going around “arresting” people just because they can, as detractors of the revised law argue. That has not been the case up to know, so it is not suddenly going to start. But if the new legislation spares some one like David Chen in defending his property from butting heads with Leviathan, the legislation will be worth it. It will further citizens’ liberties, not abridge them.
Calvin Helin, Author ‘The Economic Dependency Trap’
Calvin Helin worked his way up from an impoverished boyhood in a remote First Nations village in northern British Columbia to become a successful lawyer and international businessman. He has dedicated his life to helping others break the bonds of economic dependency and emerge with newfound confidence and self-worth.
The Battleground of Property Rights
A long established truism in the Westminster (parliamentary) system is that governments are as good as their opposition. When governments lack good policy typically so do the opposing parties. Regardless of the size of the opposition, the same can be true in...