With just days before the City of Toronto’s property control regime moved in to impose a fine for non-compliance I formally filed my declaration on the occupancy status of my condo. The city demanded to know whether the condo is my “principal residence.” If not, then the city could impose a one per cent tax based on the city’s current assessment of the condo’s value if the condo is vacant for more than six months. And if I failed to complete the form by the Feb. 28 deadline, I could be fined.

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Terence Corcoran: Property rights? No way, man. This is Canada! Back to video

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The right way to respond to this mandatory Vacant Homes Tax declaration would be to tell the city’s politicians to get stuffed — on the grounds that they have no right to question property owners about the status of their properties, and no right to tell owners they must pay a tax if the property is not being used as the city thinks it should be.

That’s what the city should be told. It should be none of their business whether someone’s property is occupied or not, or why. Nor should the city be allowed to claim the authority to require “personal information” to prove that any vacancy is justified. For example, the city claims the authority to require owners to reveal the names of any tenants on lease agreements. It could also require owners to provide evidence that the principal resident “is residing in a hospital, long term or supportive care facility” and therefore unable to occupy the property.

The alleged purpose for denying property owners their rights to hold their property as they see fit and maintain their personal privacy is “to increase the supply of housing.” Since the average sales value of a Toronto property is close to $1-million, a $10,000 tax will presumably prompt owners to rent out or sell their units.

Similar vacant residential taxes have been imposed in Vancouver for several years, part of an escalating multi-abrogation of property rights taking place across all levels of government. Former Toronto mayor John Tory, claimed the Vancouver Empty Homes Tax triggered the release of 6,000 rental units in Vancouver and Toronto should expect the same, although there is reason to doubt the Vancouver data, which is complicated by the co-existence of British Columbia’s Speculation and Vacancy Tax.

Ontario’s so-called “conservative” government under Doug Ford liked the leftist plans in B.C. so much he adopted his own Non-Resident Speculation Tax. The province recently increased the rate to 25 per cent of the value of “the purchase or acquisition of an interest in residential property located anywhere in Ontario by individuals who are foreign nationals … or by foreign corporations or taxable trustees.” Ford also pushed for Toronto to adopt its Vacant Homes Tax.

All of these tax penalties are piled on top of existing provincial and municipal taxes, including land transfer taxes and annual property taxes calculated on the value of properties — as if the assessed property value has a relationship to the services cities allegedly provide. A home purchased for $400,000 maybe 20 years ago is now taxed at the current $1.5-million market value, making the tax essentially a current tax on unrealized capital gains. These are wealth taxes, plain and simple.

The underlying economic mythology behind abuses of property rights in Canada was recently regurgitated by Ahmed Hussen, federal Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion. “Homes,” said Hussen, “should not be commodities.”

The housing-is-not-a-commodity slogan has been worked up through the Canadian leftist ideological system for at least 40 years. In 1985 it was the theme of “Gimme Shelter: Toward Housing as a Right, not a Commodity,” a paper in Canadian Woman Studies that claimed capitalism had created the housing crisis of the 1980s and that the solution required adoption of a Marxist approach to housing. Today Canada is moving closer to that ideal.

It’s hard to keep track of all the takedowns of Canadian property rights. There’s the federal Underused Housing Tax, an annual one per cent tax on the ownership of vacant or underused housing in Canada that took effect in January last year. This tax, says Ottawa, could apply to both foreign and Canadian owners. Housing could include a residential unit defined as “a single self-contained set of rooms in a building or part of a building that is distinguished from any other such set of rooms in the building or part and that is characteristic of, and suitable as, a residence.” Are they coming for your unused basement apartment?

Hussen’s housing commodity blurb was part of his statement on new Liberal regulations under the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act. Ottawa will “ban” foreign investors from buying non-recreational residential property in most populated regions of the country. Breaches of the act will face a $10,000 fine.

After Hussen released the foreign regulations, Ottawa came under attack from the U.S. and from Canadian home builders, who said the ban discouraged foreign investment and would make it harder to build new homes in Canada.

This national attack on the rights of owners of residential properties, whether foreign or Canadian, is based on the housing is a right ideology that gives government the authority to take control of the right. What’s next? Is food a commodity — or a right?