I rent a basement suite where I live, and will be moving to a new one in a few days. My impending move has got me thinking that private property rights are meaningless if you can't own land.
Living in our consumer driven society, I have acquired much stuff over the past seven years. However, I found myself looking at the prospect of not being able to find comparable space at a price I could afford. Thus, I must divest myself of some of my possessions in order to fit into a new location. That's why the acquisition of wealth will not motivate a homeless person. What you can't fit on your back (or, if you're lucky, in your car), you can't possess. Of course property values and rent can change. Living in the city "on the grid" so to speak, you are at the mercy of a utility company to provide heat, power and water. So you work. You work to live, to hold onto that which you have.
In Canada, our Constitution does not contain any rights to private property. Some may say that those rights exist in practice anyway. However, even if you "own" property, the government has the right to tax it based on its value.
So the widowed grandmother must sell her property to pay the tax on it. Its not like there is a little spigot in her house she can turn to cash in on the speculative real estate market she's become a victim of. That why property tax is an oxymoron. It isn't your property if you have to keep paying somebody else for the right to keep it.
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True. No one would pay it if they named it "someone else's property tax", would they?
And there's not much security in condo living, come to think of it. We're at the whim of the board where fees and "special assessments" (random demands of cash) are concerned, and if anything goes seriously wrong (elevators, structural damage, etc.), every owner is responsible whether it affects them or not. It's the "security" of owning with all the uncertainties and inconveniences of renting, really.
Canada's Constitution is not being followed these days. The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution Act, 1867 states:
"OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
I, A.B. do swear, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
Note.--The Name of the King or Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the Time being is to be substituted from Time to Time, with Proper Terms of Reference thereto.".
Queen Elizabeth II is not Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Queen Elizabeth II claims the style and title "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith".
The possibility exists that there has been a King and a Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ever since July 1, 1867. "And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible" (Mark 10:27).
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