One of the greatest successes of neoliberalism, this right-wing reaction to the emergence of the welfare state, is to have succeeded in bringing everything back to the individual. The state is no longer the solution, it is the problem, asserted Ronald Reagan.
We value individual efforts, individual freedoms, individual successes, individual rights, individual identities, etc. While the only way for the small to defeat the big is to unite, what better for the powerful than to unravel the collective. It’s genius.
This vision of the world has insinuated itself everywhere, it harms even today the cities which want to protect nature.
Here are two absolutely shameful examples reported in recent days by Éric-Pierre Champagne, journalist at The Press. I invite you to read the complete texts, but here are short summaries.
Bought $1, compensation requested: $4.5 million
A citizen, Ginette Dupras, inherits land for the symbolic sum of $11. She is only interested in it 32 years later and she learns that the zoning has been changed, that the land is now in a conservation zone, so it is no longer “developable”. She sued the City of Mascouche for disguised expropriation… and won. She will be entitled to “compensation” which will vary between $436,000 and $4.5 million. I point out that M.me Dupras did not even prepare the outline of a development project. She didn’t invest a cent, she didn’t do anything. She owns, that’s all.
The marvelous system framing expropriations does not protect the community, but the individual. Indeed, when the State expropriates, it must pay not only the market value of the land, which would be normal, but also compensation for the anticipated profits lost by the private owner!
This obviously multiplies the value of the land. The law no longer defends only the small owner harmed by the government, which is desirable, it now defends the right of the speculator to enrich himself! To be expropriated is to win the jackpot.
According to the lawyer for the City of Mascouche, this judgment means that it will cost the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) at least $3.1 billion to achieve its objective of protecting 17% of its territory! It will be the same everywhere in Quebec. Even when cities have the will to protect valuable land for the community, they will not have the financial capacity to do so.
The senator and the environment
This other saga is just as legal as it is immoral2. I summarize. A promoter, Senator Paul Massicotte, buys a wood for 1.9 million dollars. He plans a project of 20 houses, a project which initially receives the support of the City of Saint-Bruno. A little later, two reports confirm the presence on the ground of an endangered species, the American ginseng. Citizens mobilized and, in 2013, opponents of the project won the municipal election and adopted regulations to protect the wooded area.
The promoter/senator sued two elected officials who wanted to stymie the project (they had been elected for that!). He loses, it’s a SLAPP, an abusive appeal, says the judge. This same promoter/senator is trying to have the CMM’s by-law intended to protect natural environments of interest, including part of its wooded area, cancelled. In 2020, Quebec refuses the subdivision project under the Natural Heritage Conservation Act. The promoter is suing Saint-Bruno for disguised expropriation… and wins! The compensation is not yet known, but he claims 15 million for a wood bought 1.9 million. Indecent.
One last example.
Compensation of 20 billion
According to Radio-Canada, the Investment Arbitration Reporter (IAR) said this week that the promoters of the GNL Quebec project wanted to obtain compensation of 20 billion US from the Canadian government.3. In 2021, after a severe report from the BAPE, the Quebec government rejected their project. In 2022, the federal government was doing the same thing, also on the basis of an environmental assessment report. According to IAR, the prosecutor would claim that the decision taken by Ottawa was primarily political, which would go against free trade agreements. Exit the political choices (and the environment), it is the freedom of enterprise that takes precedence.
In a normal capitalist world, when someone makes an investment, he runs a risk. For example, the risk that the zoning will be changed, the risk that an endangered species will be discovered on one’s land or even the risk that environmental studies will clearly state that one’s project is harmful to the environment. But no. Under the current legal framework, the only ones at risk are taxpayers. The risks are collective and the profits privatized.
You have to change the Expropriation Act as soon as possible and, if possible, apply the change to cases currently before the courts. There would be for 500 million dollars currently just in the Montreal area!
Instead of protecting greedy landowners, the law should build the capacity of communities to protect themselves from them and protect nature. In short, to bring back a bit of the collective to the realm of individuals.