Rights

IN last week’s column I argued that the modern so-called progressive welfare state, while not quite seeking to abolish private property, is cer- tainly redefining the meaning of ownership.

It is doing so, among other things, by casting vatresh the meaning of rights.

Instead of merely protect- ing the rights of citizens to live free trom aggression and coercion, government has ventured into the business of

E:, conferring expansive and

expensive conveyer belt enti- tiements, the kind that range from the right to housing, to the right to feel like a cher- ished member of society.

With this mandate, the state must expand and intensi- fy its wealth-appropriating strategies, and it must sprout .tendrils and reach into the

. backyards of its citizens.

This is the Faustian deal which citizens strike. In a modern economy, the goods

. exchanged are not necessarily material; hence government

comment

can be said to meddle wit private property when it regu- lates contracts.

Indeed, government sets minimums wages, and instructs landlords who to rent to and, occasionally, at what price.

It imposes racial and gen- der quotas in the hiring prac- tices of private enterprise and i admission to private schools. Neither is it beyond government ken to instruct banks to lend money to cer- tain groups.

This erodes “the principle of private contractual freedom ‘and along with it the insti- tution of property,” writes Richard Pipes in Property and Freedom.

- The Canadian Human Rights Commission (HRC)

and its attendant sticky-pawed machinery help along the

of enshrining and enforcing bogus rights and blurring the boundaries of private property.

Described by Karen Selick in a paper tor the Calgary- based Property Rights Research Institute, the HRC imposes “2 form of involun- tary servitude on certain members of sociery — the goods and service providers. it transforms others -— con- sumers who belong to one of the privileged minonty group — into overlords. The latter have the right to force the former to perform services fe them against their wi

“There was a time,” writes Selick, “when this was called ‘stavery,’ but there are not many peopie willing to call a slave a slave these days.”

Recently indentured is Scott Brockiv, a Toronto printer who refused to pro- vide a printing service to a gay organization on the grounds of religious belief. The HRC, incidentally, allows a particu- larly nasty subversion of due process, as a respondent gets

none of the mandatory defences afforded a defendant under the Criminal Code,

Indeed, a Katkaesque situ- ation. A priori, die adjudica- tor sets about timiting the respondeni’s freedoms in accordance with Section ] of the Charter which subjects the freedom of religion, con- science, thought, belief, opin ion, and expression to “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and demac- ratic society.”

And then down the shoot she slides with the “slippery slope” logical fallacy: allow Brockie to refuse to serve

- gays, she asserts, and before

long there will be “fewer and fewer services available to members of marginalized groups.”

And so, having failed to violate property or person himself, Scott Brockie shifts from peaceably minding his own business and running a private enterprise, to being accused by a quasi-jurist of tampering 3 with the self-worth {another bogus right) of a protected group.

Friday, June 23, 2000 — North Shere News - 7

commissions usurp property rights

Ic goes without saving that the “potential” harm to digni- y (being a “right” as well} was found to ounweigh Brockie’s private property rights and freedom of religion (tor that is what's at stake).

One cannot fail but to be bowled over by the delicately calibrated balancing of “com- peting rights” the adjudicator and the code have effected.

We come to the darkest corner of the decision: “When he enters the public market place and offers services to the public,” goes the ruling, Brockie, who is not a public servant, can no longer expect to practise his religious belicts by denying services to gays and lesbians.

Herewith lie the redefini- tion of property and the enforcement of servitude.

Open up shop and the right

of free association becomes subject to the arbitrary intru- sion of your new stakeholders; they will duly ensure that con- tracts vou pursue or reject conform to community stan- dards and to their notion of the public good, or else, buddy.

It is easy to lose sight of the issues here. All the same, the complainants in this case don’t have the right to access a printing service that belongs to Scott Brockie. They can petition for it. If refused, they are free to organize boycotts, engage in negative advertis- ing, get petitions signed, or, most productive, take their business elsewhere. But in 2 free society, there can be no place for a coerced, involun- tary association berween adults, contractual or other.

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Put leash on West Van dog bylaw

Dear Editor: It was with great dismay that I read the } forth Shore News article “WV. Pet Bylaw Will Have Bite.” «This proposed bylaw is the latest exam- ple-of a government body that secks to regulate too many facets of our daily

The notion that residents can own a

maximum of two dogs (and walk only three at a time) is one of the most ridicu- lous proposals that I have heard. Where do we draw the line? Will they limit che num- ber of cats or birds that one can own?

How about limiting the number of of f- spring a couple can bear?

Perhaps we should not allow parents to

a propose that our government focus on items like more effective health care, transportation and infrastructure and let the general population. decide on such items as purchasing and exercising a fami- ly per.

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