> How can you be said to own anything if you are forced, basically 'extorted' by government,
There are a huge amount of things you can't do with your own property. You can't erect a 300m tall tower. You can't make loud noise at 4am. You can't operate a tannery in the middle of the city. And so forth. If society believes this tax is a bad idea they can protest and vote them out.
Which was what I said without the examples: as long as your freedoms don't take away from the freedom of others.
I am for paying taxes to have a standing army, so I don't have to protect my own border, but I guess the line between libertarianism and socialism is that I don't want government trying to legislate intelligence, or non-precedentedly passing prophylactic measures for "my own good"; I'd like to decide those things on my own.
I fail to see how policing occupancy is just in this case, but there are those who have decided their are limits to how much wealth you can have and how you can spend it. They know what's best for you.
So if the owner sells the $1 million dollar home, what a "poor" person can snatch it at $750k? I'd like to see the logical conclusion to this thinking.
Given these are 85% Canadian-owned, how is it a measure against the 15% foreign-owned properties? And isn't xenophobia part of that type of legislation?
> Which was what I said without the examples: as long as your freedoms don't take away from the freedom of others.
One could argue that living somewhere is a fundamental freedom. In a situation like this, when there are no places to rent, trying to force the empty ones to be available for rent is a way to ensure that fundamental freedom. The government -- in normal places, we are not talking Trump here -- is carefully evaluating the limitation of rights vs the freedom of others and they found this a good idea. Once again: if the voters disagree, they can protest and vote.
There are a huge amount of things you can't do with your own property. You can't erect a 300m tall tower. You can't make loud noise at 4am. You can't operate a tannery in the middle of the city. And so forth. If society believes this tax is a bad idea they can protest and vote them out.