this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 months ago (28 children)

I'm going to give a bit of an odd one here.

Nobody in Canada should own land other than the federal government.

All land used by everyone should be leased from them.

This includes everything from the property with your home on it, to uranium mine, to national parks. Everything.

[–] Subscript5676@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And then we attract pricks into the federal government who ignore rules and they evict everyone overnight so that they can build a resort for themselves.

Look, I get the sentiment, but this sort of centralization is scary.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean... they can already evict people from land they privately own. It's called "expropriation" and it happens fairly regularly in Canada.

Not sure why this would change anything related to that.

[–] Subscript5676@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Then how would your proposition change anything, except that the government would have even less reason to pay private citizens after forcing them to move?

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (9 children)

It changes the money part of the equation. You could no longer sell your land because you wouldn't own it. The government is the beneficiary of any land value appreciation, not private investors.

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[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Eeeh.... I dunno. I kind of disagree with that one. I think it's important to allow people to own their own piece of land. Otherwise everyone can risk being evicted from their home by the government and I don't like that idea.

Limiting how much land people can own though... Like how many residential properties. That I could go for.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"everyone can risk being evicted from their home by the government"

A) The government already has a tool to do that, in Canada it's called "expropriation" and they happen fairly regularly.

B) That's actually a feature of this system. People buying up land and never leaving is actually one of the major problems with our current real estate prices. In areas of high demand, if the government just terminated leases and then forced those properties to be developed we wouldn't have the pricing issues we have now. Does this hurt people? yes, but also not nearly as much. Given that property would be much more affordable under such a scheme moving elsewhere wouldn't be nearly as difficult.

[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I understand your point. But I'm worried about government abusing this.

Yeah you can be expropriated, but usually you either get a fair compensation or have legal tools to defend yourself to a certain extent no?

I think my problem is that I have a certain fear of not being able to own my own piece of land because it's the most essential things to own. It's your own little part of the world where you are in control.

[–] GuyLivingHere@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

The First Nations never had our concept of owning land. The land owns us. So we should respect it - or it will all end up looking like a strip mine eventually.

[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago

I can't argue with you there.

I often think about what life here would be like if there never had been any colonization. I wonder what society here would be like.

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[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Land ownership is already a fiction in Canada.

If I buy a book, it’s mine to do what I want with, for as long as I want.

If I buy real estate, the government still gets to say what I do on/with it, and can take it away if they decide they really want it, or if I stop paying them property taxes. That doesn’t sound like ownership; it sounds like a rental agreement.

[–] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

Its true. Ultimately all land in Canada is ultimately owned by the Crown and can be expropriated at the gov's desire and no citizen can stop it, no matter what. We do have good laws around being fairly compensated, but you still lose your home, no matter how much you've invested in it or how many generations your family has lived on it. My brother in law just lost his because of a new highway coming right through his house. Yes, he got paid out, but its really hard to see 20 years of hard work and a house you built taken away for a road.

[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

Of course there should be guidelines. You shouldn't be able to use your property as a dumping ground for waste for example. And the taxes pay for the infrastructure that allows you to reach your land, to link it to the water network, to collect waste, etc.

[–] grte@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (9 children)

100% agree. Private, inheritable land ownership in the context of a population that doesn't all enter the game at the same time with the same resources available to them is inherently unjustifiable.

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[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Plus, a lot of property taxes and other local/regional usage income can be rolled up into the lease payments. What matters is how those leases are calculated, such that small/cheap properties for the working poor lease for almost nothing, but a McMansion (or actual mansion) would lease for a massive amount.

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[–] GuyLivingHere@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

YES YES YES. Use LVT to replace one of the awful taxes Canadians gripe about (maybe GST, maybe income tax?)

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

100% replace income taxes.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (11 children)

Yah, that couldn't get abused.

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[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'd only want this if we did election reform to any variant of ranked choice voting federally, mandated it for provincial and municipal elections as well and somehow enshrined this in the charter that no subsequent government can change this. We should also have ten year terms mandated. 4-5 years is too little for proper long term planning.

Would of course need a couple more safeguards preventing that I can't think of, but either way, I would not want a dictatorship to take away land for itself with malice.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

I've said this like a dozen times in the comments. A dictatorship can ALREADY take away your land if they wanted to. The Canadian government expropriates land from private citizens all the time.

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