The (ir)relevance of constitutional protection for property rights? Compensation for takings in Canada and the United States

Abstract

Requiring a government to pay compensation when it takes property is a common means of protecting property rights. In this article, I explore the implications of this right to property having a constitutional form, rather than a statutory or common law form, by examining the comparative law of compensation for takings in Canada and the United States. The analysis is focused on the various functional interests in efficiency and fairness that underlie the protection of property rights and their often competing requirements for rigidity and flexibility. Rather than providing a binding constraint that enhances efficiency, the choice of a constitutional form appears most consistent with the prioritization of distributive concerns around government’s power over property rights. However, the substantive protection of property rights appears to be driven as much by the underlying interests as by the choice of legal form. Variation in the practical content of property rights in Canada and the United States is much more subtle than the difference in constitutional status suggests.