Bill No. 225 - Halifax Regional Municipality Charter - 3rd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : I rise to speak briefly to this bill. I rise to support my colleagues. I'll start by saying what others have said, which is that it's a bad bill.

I have three children, and at the ages that they're at, I feel like the conversation in my house is always about rules: You know you can't do this at this time, or this is a rule, or why do I have to follow the rule? Because I'm your parent. Who cares? Whatever it is, it's about following the rules.

First of all, the government did not follow the rules. That has been pointed out by my colleagues. This bill is in contravention of the Municipal Government Act. But in this Chamber, we don't just follow the rules. We make the rules. It is our job to make the rules better.

When I was young, the way that I learned about systemic racism was through the story of Africville. The way that I met the member for Preston was through working on land titles - years and years ago, before our political lives started. We know in those cases - which certainly would raise the concern of any community - any community that has experienced the kind of systemic racism regarding land, which has been spoken about in this House today would be rightly and deeply suspicious of any legislation that infringed on what little progress has been made in that area, or threatened to infringe on it. Yet we have a government that seemingly is not able to either articulate or care or pursue this job that we have, which is to make better rules, to know better and to do better.

My colleague the member for Halifax Needham spoke about the legislation that was passed, the anti-racism legislation that was passed in this House, the purpose of which was to avoid situations like this. We know that systemic racism is often invisible to the folks making the rules. It is. That's just how it is.

Our job is to make that visible. One of the jobs of that legislation is to make that visible, to make visible the disproportionate impact of the legislation that moves through this House on different communities.

This is a test case. This is a test case of that, because any government at any time can always stand behind the defence of, well, that's not how it was intended. That's not how we planned it. That's not what we want it to be. We hear that every day. Every time we debate legislation if it's controversial, the government will say, well, we're doing this for this reason. Often on behalf of our constituents we might say, well, we think it might have this other impact or we think there might be this other reason.

In this case, I think the most charitable interpretation, which I have no reason to believe is not the right one - insofar as this bill has the potential to impact historically African Nova Scotian communities, Indigenous communities, and others - is that it was an oversight. But that's not a good enough excuse. If it was an oversight, fix it.

We tried to fix it on Thursday. The government, as has been mentioned, brought forward an amendment that did respond to some of the specific requests from the Decade for People of African Descent, and that letter has been tabled, but it didn't go far enough. I think that we understand that it didn't go far enough. I think the government probably understands that it didn't go far enough, so now I think the government has to answer the question of why they're not taking that feedback.

We have a lot of really pressing issues in this province, and the legislation that is moving through the House today and tomorrow addresses very little of it. I think the government would say it sets the table for them to be able to address it, although we vigorously disagree on the means that they're taking to do that. Nonetheless, the issues are urgent. I think for folks whom I speak to - who have real concerns about their security of tenure, where they live, how they're able to experience that, who have a history of dispossession and marginalization - it is incumbent upon the government to know better and to do better.

I want to close by saying, again, we're making the rules here. This government has an opportunity to make rules that are just and fair, and don't have a disproportionately negative impact and don't even have the potential to. It doesn't matter what the purpose is, it matters what the impact is, and this bill has the clear capacity to have an incredibly negative impact on the lives of many folks.

I would join with my colleagues to ask, once again, that the minister take this bill back to the department and bring it back in a way that is compliant with provincial legislation, that does not perpetuate systemic racism, and that respects all orders of government.