SUSAN LEBLANC: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak in favour of this bill and to see this process moving forward. I just want to say, before I begin my prepared notes, that I am especially pleased that this bill has been put forward by a number of different government departments, which hopefully signals and signifies this government’s commitment to tearing down the silos of departments and having departments work together on issues that are important to Nova Scotians. This bill was essentially sponsored by the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage; the Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs; the Department of Lands and Forestry; and the Department of Justice - and it is really great to see.
The situation with land titles in historically Black communities in Nova Scotia is one of the clearest examples of systemic racism in our province’s history. I am glad that this bill will address some of the barriers to access, but I am sorry that they were not dealt with years ago ‑ hundreds of years ago, or even four years ago, or three years ago. Systemic, structural, anti‑Black racism means that African Nova Scotians face challenges to accessing employment, education, justice, housing, health care, and other social services.
Property ownership and inheritance is a significant side of power and privilege in our society, but Black Nova Scotians in many parts of the province may not be able to sell or bequeath or mortgage their land for historical reasons that have to do with racism. The land titles process has been excruciatingly slow for too many people and there are still families and communities that won’t be helped under this legislation.
Our caucus office has tried but has not been able to get evaluation information from the department as to how quickly the land titles process is moving or whether the government has set and met benchmarks for the program. Listening to the Minister of Justice’s comments, I would suggest that the government does recognize that the process has been too slow and there’s so much more to do, but we were endeavoring to find out about benchmarks. I’m not sure whether the fact that we couldn’t get the information is because the information simply does not exist or whether this government is not willing to share it.
Mr. Speaker, the Land Titles Initiative has been a striking example of structural racism and how it operates in insidious ways. Despite the apparently good and public intentions of the former Premier and minister, who is now the current Premier, applicants have met with hurdle after hurdle. There was even a case, as my colleague for Dartmouth South referenced, at the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia that struck down an arbitrary criterion that the department was applying to applications in their lengthy deliberations. All the while, the former minister - the current Premier - claimed to be looking for ways to be removing barriers and streamlining processes. I hope it is true that this bill will enable progress on this front.
Again, particularly encouraging is the appointment of Angela Simmonds as the executive director of the program. She has been a tireless champion for Black families in this realm and many others. I believe that the intention is very good with this bill and I am glad that these changes are coming forward. I look forward to hearing from stakeholders at the Law Amendments committee.
May I just say, before I close, that the Law Amendments committee is another example of a place we need to make sure people have access to - especially, in this case, people from the African Nova Scotian communities who may want to contribute to the Law Amendments committee. May I just put it out there that we should make sure that stakeholders in the African Nova Scotian community are made aware that a Law Amendments committee meeting is happening on this bill - I believe it is Monday, but whenever it is happening - and make sure that information is broadly communicated out to the far reaches of the province so we can have as much participation in the very important Law Amendments committee process as possible.