When it was proposed that property rights be enshrined in the Constitution, the New Democratic Party (NDP), Canada’s socialist party, came out adamantly opposed to it, and so this never happened.
When I returned to Canada in 1981, after having lived in the United States for 15 years, then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was in the process of what was called “repatriating” the Canadian Constitution. I remember being appalled by the process and the final result. To be clear, a good argument could be made for doing what the PM was doing. At the time Canada already had a constitution, it was called the British North America Act of 1867, but it was an act passed by the British Parliament when granting Canada independence and as such could only be amended by said Parliament. Since it stemmed from the constitutional tradition of England, the British North America Act was not that bad for what it was, but the idea of devising a made-in-Canada constitution had a lot of merit both because it would give more independence to the country and also provide an opportunity for Canada to craft a formal Bill of Rights that could be referenced moving forward. But, as ever, the devil was in the details and on this score the process and the result were seriously flawed.
It’s been a strange fall in two of New York State’s westernmost counties, Niagara and Erie, on the Canadian border.
