Sunday, 5 January 2025

I've always loved having my own space. Now, I'm a 41-year-old lawyer with a roommate


 
 
 

I've always loved having my own space. Now, I'm a 41-year-old lawyer with a roommate

The skyrocketing cost of living has me worried about my finances

 
Robyn Schleihauf · for CBC First Person ·
Robyn Schleihauf used to share a bedroom with her two sisters. She then had roommates until 25. After she purchased her own home, she thought her days of having a roommate were finally behind her. But life took an unexpected turn. (Stacey O’Toole )

This First Person column is the experience of Robyn Schleihauf, who lives in Dartmouth, N.S. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

My fridge reeked with the fetid rot of food gone off. After bringing the head of cauliflower to my nose, I felt confident that the smell was not from my groceries. I looked with resentment at my roommate's neglected meal kits, annoyed that he orders five of the overpackaged ingredient sacks every week when he is only home to cook two or three of them, with the rest left to take up fridge space and slowly spoil. 

To be fair, it wasn't his fault. He works a full-time job, does gig work walking dogs and feeding cats and just got another part-time job at the liquor store. He's not malicious or even really neglectful; he's just overworked and tired from trying to pay the bills and ends up ordering takeout.

Cleaning out my roommate's rotten food isn't how I pictured my life as a 41-year-old lawyer. 

The last time I had a roommate, I was 25. We shared a flat in a high-ceilinged historic house in Halifax. I was a waitress and she was in art school and our paths rarely crossed. Still, I craved space that was just mine. So I downgraded to have my own apartment in a ramshackle house on a busy street between the garage for the city's ambulances and the hospital. I loved that place. 

The truth is, I have always craved that space. As a kid who shared a room with two sisters, I tried to draw an imaginary line on the floor to separate my third of the room from theirs. 

In 2021, I purchased my first home. At the time, people commented nonstop about how much the market had gone up since COVID-19. "I know," I'd say. "If only I'd had a crystal ball." 

The truth is, I felt like I had to buy a house as soon as I could because I knew if my landlord sold the house my apartment was in, I would be left to navigate the now wildly inflated rental market. 

Without the help of a family member, I'm not sure I ever could have bought a home in this economy even though I was making a good living. I was grateful to find something in my budget and lucky. When I moved into my little bungalow, I spent sunny afternoons gleefully stacking wood for the woodstove on breaks between my billable hours. 

A collage of two images. On the left, a white one-storey home covered in snow. On the right, a beige couch with a black cat and a brown dog cozying up on fleece blankets. Schleihauf bought a home in Halifax in 2021 and relished living by herself. (Robyn Schleihauf)

It's jarring to break my 16-year streak of blissful solo living, but sometimes life takes you in unexpected directions. 

When my dad was diagnosed with cancer, I drove back and forth between Nova Scotia and Ontario. Between sleepless nights propped up on the plastic chairs in the ER and trying to run my legal practice from my parents' dining room table, I finally had to concede that I couldn't keep up with the demands of my clients and also watch my dad struggle to breathe. I took my colleagues up on their offers to take on my files and pared my legal practice down. 

About a month after my dad died, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer and my cross-country pilgrimages continued. Resuscitating my legal practice remained on the back burner.  

I debated whether I should sell my house and rent again, but I had backed myself into a corner: the cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment in Halifax was now on par with my mortgage payments. I decided to get a roommate to live in my guest bedroom in an attempt to rebuild some sense of financial security. 

Nearly two years later, my parents are both gone. But even now, as my legal practice ramps up again, I am preoccupied with dread that the skyrocketing cost of living may never go down. 

I'm aware that there are many Canadians who are in far more precarious housing situations than I am. I'm fortunate enough to own a home and I know it is unlikely that I will ever be unhoused. Still, as a millennial, it's difficult to believe things will ever get better or easier economically. So far in my adult life, they haven't.

WATCH | Your odds of owning a home as a millenial: 
 
     Born in the '90s: How likely is it that you own a home? | About That
 
According to Statistics Canada, children of homeowners are much more likely to own homes themselves. Andrew Chang breaks down the numbers to explain just how wide a gap there is and what factors come into play.

"I wouldn't want a roommate," my niece said over dinner at my house when the first one moved in.

"It's not so bad," I told her, even though it did feel like an intrusion into this special space — my very first home. 

Then, a few months later, my car was broken into. The rear passenger window was smashed; the thieves must have seen my purse handle peeking out from under the seat cover. I'm not sure why I didn't take it with me, but it didn't occur to me. 

Sure, I'd heard of cars left unlocked in driveways in the city that had been rifled through, but for the most part, I had not been conditioned in Halifax to worry about a smash-and-grab in the middle of the day while parked on the gravel shoulder of a decently populated road. 

I called my bank and credit card companies to report various cards stolen while my friend swept out the broken glass from the back seat. 

Whoever had my debit card spent more than $200 somewhere before I managed to freeze it, and I spent 45 minutes on the phone being transferred to various departments of my bank reporting the fraud. 

A couple of days later, my online banking showed that the $200 was spent at the dollar store. My heart shattered into little pieces for whoever stole my debit card. That $200 at the dollar store made me believe the person likely needed essentials like groceries and hygiene items and maybe some small wants — snacks and little crafts and toys. 

I recognize that we're all just trying to get by — me, my roommate and the person who stole from me — and I know that if I'm this worried, there are many more people who are far more than worried. 

I'm aware that a few rotten groceries sharing fridge space with my produce won't kill me. Still, I miss the quiet richness of my solitude. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Robyn Schleihauf

Freelance contributor

Robyn Schleihauf is a writer and a lawyer based in Dartmouth, N.S. She is working on a memoir about her recovery from addiction.

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices
 
 
 
 

While courts still use fax machines, law firms are using AI to tailor arguments for judges

AI can read a judge’s entire history of decision-making and spit out an argument based on what it finds

 
Robyn Schleihauf · for CBC Opinion ·
Equal Before the Law, a 2012 sculpture by Eldon Garnet that depicts a lion and lamb face-to-face, is pictured outside the Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto. Artificial intelligence can 'read' a judge’s entire record of decisions, so lawyers can tailor their arguments to align with the judge’s worldview, writes Robyn Schleihauf. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

This column is an opinion by Robyn Schleihauf, a writer and a lawyer based in Dartmouth, N.S. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

It is no secret that the courts — and other bodies, such as provincial and federal human rights commissions, landlord and tenant boards, workers compensation boards, utility and review boards, etc. — are behind the times when it comes to technology.

For decades, these bodies repeatedly failed to adopt new technologies. Many courts still rely primarily on couriers and fax machines. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a suite of changes in the justice system, bringing things like virtual hearings to reality, but as we move back to in-person appearances, some courts and administrative decision makers are showing their continued resistance to adopting technology — debating things like whether to allow people to submit their divorce applications via email post-COVID.

Meanwhile, law firms and private sector lawyers are more technologically enabled than ever.

Law firms and lawyers can subscribe to legal analytics services, which can do things like use artificial intelligence (AI) to "read" a judge's entire record of decisions and sell that information to law firms so their lawyers can tailor their arguments to align with the judge's preferred word use and, arguably, their worldview. 

What this means is that legal analytics can root out bias, and law firms can exploit it.

While the use of AI to understand a judge may seem alarming, it has always been the case that lawyers could exploit some judges' biases. Lawyers have become increasingly specialized over the years and familiarity with the system — and the people within it — is part of what some clients are paying for when they hire a lawyer. 

The difference is the scale

Lawyers practising family law know which judges will never side entirely with the mother. Lawyers practising criminal law know who is generally sympathetic to arguments about systemic discrimination and who is not. Lawyers aren't supposed to "judge-shop," but stay in any circle of the law for long enough and you'll know which way the wind is blowing when it comes to certain decision makers. The system has always been skewed to favour those who can afford that expertise. 

What is different with AI is the scale by which this knowledge is aggregated. While a lawyer who has been before a judge three or four times may have formed some opinions about them, these opinions are based on anecdotal evidence. AI can read the judge's entire history of decision-making and spit out an argument based on what it finds. 

The common law has always used precedents, but what is being used here is different — it's figuring out how a judge likes an argument to be framed, what language they like using, and feeding it back to them. 

And because the legal system builds on itself — with judges using prior cases to determine how a decision should be made in the case before them — these AI-assisted arguments from lawyers could have the effect of further entrenching a judge's biases in the case law, as the judge's words are repeated verbatim in more and more decisions. This is particularly true if judges are unaware of their own biases.

Use AI to confront biases

Imagine instead if courts and administrative decision makers took these legal analytics seriously. If they used this same AI to identify their own biases and confront them, the justice system could be less vulnerable to those biases.

Issues like sexism and racism do not typically manifest suddenly and unexpectedly — there are always subtle or not so subtle cues — some harder to pinpoint than others, but obvious when stacked on top of each other. But the body charged with judicial accountability — the Canadian Judicial Council — relies, for the most part, on individual complaints before it looks at a judge's conduct. 

AI-generated data could help bring the extent of the problem of bias to light in a way that relying on individual complainants to come forward never could. AI has the capacity to review hundreds of hours of trial recordings or tens of thousands of pages of court transcripts — something that was previously inconceivable because of the human labour involved. 

AI could help make evident the biases of judges that were known among the legal profession, but difficult to prove. And then bias and discrimination could be dealt with — ideally before those decision makers cause immeasurable and unnecessary harm to those in the justice system, and before hundreds of thousands of dollars in appeal costs are spent to overturn bad law.

AI is here to stay and there is little doubt that judges will find bespoke arguments compelling. The question is not whether AI should be used — AI is already being used. The question is whether our court systems will continue to struggle with technology from the 1980s and 90s, while 21st century tech is rewriting our case law.

Do you have a strong opinion that could add insight, illuminate an issue in the news, or change how people think about an issue? We want to hear from you. Here's how to pitch to us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robyn Schleihauf

Freelance contributor

Robyn Schleihauf is a writer and a lawyer based in Dartmouth, N.S. She is working on a memoir about her recovery from addiction.

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices
 
 
 
 
 
902-209-1514
 

ABOUT ROBYN SCHLEIHAUF

Robyn Schleihauf is a lawyer with over 7 years of experience assessing complaints and conducting investigations for regulatory bodies, employers, and National and Provincial Sports Organizations. She practices exclusively in matters involving alleged violations of codes of conduct. 

Robyn sits on the Board of the Nova Scotia College of Nursing. She is a CBC freelance contributor and recently published an opinion piece on the use of AI and large language models in litigation. In 2023 and 2024 Robyn was an associate professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University and taught the Introduction to Legal Ethics Course.

Robyn is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School (2015), where she received the Cassels Brock & Blackwell Award for Professionalism and the Ian Scott Public Interest Internship Award. For her internship, she worked at a Community Legal Aid Clinic for the Baamseeda program, along with the Indigenous legal coordinator, providing legal assistance to Indigenous communities and individuals.​​

Robyn worked as a Pro Bono lawyer for the North Preston Land Pro Bono Initiative and was successful in assisting her clients to gain title to their land. Robyn has appeared on CBC news and in The Coast to speak on this issue. She has also guest lectured at her alma mater, Osgoode Hall Law School with respect to the Land Titles System in Nova Scotia.​

In her free time, Robyn is a writer, with a focus is on creative non-fiction, personal essays and opinion pieces. Her work has been published on CBC.ca and in The Coast. Robyn formerly served on the Board of Directors for the Afterwords Literary Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robyn-schleihauf-a82a8662/?originalSubdomain=ca

Robyn Schleihauf

Robyn Schleihauf
(She/Her)
Writer. Consultant. Lawyer.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Education

 

Experience

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But that's not fair is a collection of personal essays and creative nonfiction by Robyn Ashley Schleihauf

Robyn is a writer, a lawyer and a consultant in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She enjoys making scones, swimming in the ocean, reading, and listening to people speak earnestly and genuinely about just about anything. She lives with a tailless cat named Bobby and a corgi named Chips.

​

Find out more about her law practice:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Conduct unbecoming: What should the Society do when it comes to social media gossip, posts and behaviour?

Published on

written by Robyn Schleihauf

As the public interest regulator of the legal profession, we receive concerns about lawyers’ conduct. With the rise of social media, we have increasingly received calls with concerns about what lawyers post online, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or dating sites.

Social media are platforms for speech and their use ubiquitous: most lawyers have at least some online presence either personally or professionally.

While lawyers have the same Charter guarantees as anyone else, including the s. 2(b) right to freedom of expression, this right is restricted by the ethical obligations a lawyer owes as a licensed member of the legal profession.

There are limits placed on lawyers, even in their personal life, when it comes to speech.

The paper, “Conduct unbecoming: What should the Society do when it comes to social media gossip, posts and behaviour,” explores to what extent the Society should regulate the speech of its members, in the public interest.

This paper, written by Robyn Schleihauf, NSBS Staff Lawyer, Early Resolution, identifies the three rules in the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society Code of Professional Conduct that explicitly engage a lawyer’s conduct in their private life, and three categories of speech that may fall within the Society’s jurisdiction to review.

It also provides an overview of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decisions in Doré and Groia and draws out four principles from the caselaw to help evaluate these complaints when they are received.

Read the full paper

Questions or comments? Connect with us at info@nsbs.org or comment below.

 
 
 
 
 
 
250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston If you want an example of system racism in our province, look at the issue of land titles in our African Nova Scotian Communities By Robyn Schleihauf Mark as Favourite Get more stories like this delivered to your inbox by signing up for The Coast Daily newsletter. click to enlarge 250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston Province of Nova Scotia Red shapes on the map show the 13 areas in Nova Scotia where landholders are waiting for their deeds from the government under the Land Titles Clarification Act. A decision came out of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia recently. The Downey v. Nova Scotia ruling affirms what pro bono lawyers and the grassroots movement of North Preston residents (that spurred the mobilization of those pro bono lawyers) have been telling the Department of Lands and Forestry for at least half a decade: the way in which the department has been administering the Land Titles Clarification Act is wrong. This is incredibly frustrating, because the government has publicly promised to work to help clear up title for residents in North Preston and the other LTCA areas, while it privately sets up barriers that it had no authority in law to impose in order to reject applications. If you’re wondering what the LTCA is, the following is a brief history as I understand it. If you were a loyalist who fought for the Crown in the late 1700s and were white, the government provided you with both land–100 or more fertile acres–and a deed to said land (which was taken from unceded Mi’kmaq territory, but that’s a whole other story). If you were a Black loyalist, the government may have provided you with land–not the fertile land offered to your white counterparts, but land nonetheless–however the government never bothered to provide you title to that land. (Additionally, if you were a Black loyalist, you likely fought for the British in exchange for your freedom from slavery.) The issue of receiving land without a deed was not only true for the loyalists, but for the other Black settlers who came to live in Nova Scotia. The government’s complete failure to follow through on its promise planted the seed for 250 years of continued systemic racism in our province. About 200 years into this history, enter premier Robert Stanfield. Stanfield created the Interdepartmental Commission of Human Rights in the 1960s. "It will not be easy to find solutions to problems affecting certain segments of our population which have been more than 200 years in the making. But as great as these problems may be, their magnitude must not deter us from making a beginning," he said about the commission’s findings, on Human Rights Day, December 10, 1962. "Progress will be slow and will depend very largely on the cooperation of all our citizens. We must remember that the social and economic problems of minority groups, who for one reason or another are not enabled to occupy their rightful place in the community, adversely affect us all." Stemming from the commission, the LTCA was born as a simplified process to finally grant title to African Nova Scotians. But well-intentioned as the LTCA was, it did not go so far as ensuring the government provided clear title to all residents. Instead it relied on residents to apply for title. The process required applicants to hire a lawyer, largely because the department charged with reviewing applications was either categorically rejecting them or not moving them forward. Applicants also needed a lawyer to write the deed, and a surveyor to set out the metes and bounds of the land. You might be thinking, Well, that makes sense. I had to hire a lawyer when I bought my house. There’s simply a cost to doing that. But that is not what is happening here. The government failed to provide title when it was obliged to do so. The very same department embarked on a decade-long project to clear up titles on 28,000 properties in Cape Breton, in Richmond and Inverness Counties. That project wrapped up two years ago, and no one had to apply. The government went in and cleared it up because it had made an error in not providing clear title 100 years earlier. For North Preston and the other LTCA areas—13 places in total, including Cherry Brook, Little Lorraine and Drumhead—this is not something the government is willing to do. click to enlarge 250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston Province of Nova Scotia Detail showing North Preston from the province's LTCA map: The Supreme Court ruled in favour of residents, so now lands and forestry minister Iain Rankin should do the work to stop his department from giving them the runaround. Dwight Adams, from the North Preston Land Recovery Initiative, explained in an interview with CBC back in 2016 that it was his understanding that historically individual LTCA applicants “were always given quite a bit of a runaround” from the government. It is rumoured that the department had a number of applications that were ongoing and unilaterally closed the files without reason in the 1990s. In 2017, after much pressure on the government and the formation of a group of pro bono lawyers to assist with files (thanks in large part to Angela Simmonds, a North Preston resident and lawyer), the government announced $2.7 million dollars worth of funding to try to address the issue of land titles and said that it was considering “amending legislation [the LTCA and possibly other legislation including the Probate Act] to reduce barriers”. In the Department of Natural Resources (the prior iteration to the Department of Lands and Forestry) 2017-18 work plan, a performance indicator was a “Percentage increase in number of properties in East Preston, North Preston and Cherry Brook for which the land title has been clarified.” I have no idea how they planned to make that happen, since the department was–and still remains–entirely dependent on residents bringing forward applications and then having the stamina to endure the horrifically bureaucratic process, which, by all appearances, seems to have as its goal to deter applicants from applying and to close files as quickly as possible without approving them. I worked as a pro bono lawyer on a very straightforward file. It took over three years to secure title for my clients from the department, and even when the minister finally provided the Certificate of Title, the department’s lawyers tried to claim a further title search was required at my clients’ expense. Nowhere in the LTCA is the minister entitled to ask for or require that. I am loathe to think about how unrepresented claimants are treated. Recently, the department rejected an application because the applicant failed to prove that they have occupied the land for 20 years. This new purported 20-year “requirement” has no basis in law, and does the exact opposite of what the government expressed in its 2017 press release. Again, this was pointed out multiple times in consultation with the pro bono lawyers and various government departments since at least 2016. Instead of following the direction of those lawyers, the department began to apply that standard and put it up on its website that it was a requirement for applicants. Worse still, the department then had to defend its position, which was a hardline insistence on the 20-year adverse possession standard, in court. The minister lost in court and now the application has to be sent back to be reconsidered by the department again. The decision of Justice Jamie Campbell should not have come as a surprise to minister Iain Rankin, particularly in light of the fact that I had sent him correspondence directly outlining this issue months ago and, as is mentioned throughout this piece, lawyers from the pro bono project had been advising against his department using the 20-year standard—on the basis that it is wrong in law—for nearly half a decade. In a statement provided to CBC News last week, minister Rankin says, "We will continue to look for ways to streamline this process and remove barriers wherever possible.” For Rankin to say streamlining and removing barriers is something to “continue” suggests that this is work his department has actually been engaged in. Respectfully, that is baffling in the context in which this comment was made, which is as a direct result of his own department putting barriers up, which it had no authority in law to do. I will follow up with Rankin with respect to his now-public commitment to again review his department’s process, but, quite frankly, it is exhausting. I am always struck by the words of Fred MacKinnon, who sat on the Interdepartmental Committee on Human Rights from which this legislation was born. "I was struck by two very evident facts," he said about trying to move bureaucrats to do the right thing. "The first related to the long and laborious task of persuading public servants and politicians that change was essential and, if delayed, change would be thrust upon us and second, the leadership of the premier.” The LTCA needs real leadership. Minister Rankin has an opportunity to champion it. I think often of the hours, days, months and years community advocates and then lawyers have lent their expertise to the minister and his predecessor and that department. Despite Rankin’s most recent verbal recommitment to revising the LTCA process, I remain deeply concerned about the applications before the Department of Lands and Forestry. I hope Rankin is up to the task. ——— 
Robyn Schleihauf is a lawyer in Halifax. She runs a solo practice assisting professional regulators, human rights commissions and ombudsman offices with complaint files. She is interested in professional ethics, equity, diversity and restorative justice. You can find her at robynschleihauflegalwriter.com.

Read more at: https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/250-years-later-the-province-is-still-trying-to-shirk-its-promises-in-north-preston-24491363
250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston If you want an example of system racism in our province, look at the issue of land titles in our African Nova Scotian Communities By Robyn Schleihauf Mark as Favourite Get more stories like this delivered to your inbox by signing up for The Coast Daily newsletter. click to enlarge 250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston Province of Nova Scotia Red shapes on the map show the 13 areas in Nova Scotia where landholders are waiting for their deeds from the government under the Land Titles Clarification Act. A decision came out of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia recently. The Downey v. Nova Scotia ruling affirms what pro bono lawyers and the grassroots movement of North Preston residents (that spurred the mobilization of those pro bono lawyers) have been telling the Department of Lands and Forestry for at least half a decade: the way in which the department has been administering the Land Titles Clarification Act is wrong. This is incredibly frustrating, because the government has publicly promised to work to help clear up title for residents in North Preston and the other LTCA areas, while it privately sets up barriers that it had no authority in law to impose in order to reject applications. If you’re wondering what the LTCA is, the following is a brief history as I understand it. If you were a loyalist who fought for the Crown in the late 1700s and were white, the government provided you with both land–100 or more fertile acres–and a deed to said land (which was taken from unceded Mi’kmaq territory, but that’s a whole other story). If you were a Black loyalist, the government may have provided you with land–not the fertile land offered to your white counterparts, but land nonetheless–however the government never bothered to provide you title to that land. (Additionally, if you were a Black loyalist, you likely fought for the British in exchange for your freedom from slavery.) The issue of receiving land without a deed was not only true for the loyalists, but for the other Black settlers who came to live in Nova Scotia. The government’s complete failure to follow through on its promise planted the seed for 250 years of continued systemic racism in our province. About 200 years into this history, enter premier Robert Stanfield. Stanfield created the Interdepartmental Commission of Human Rights in the 1960s. "It will not be easy to find solutions to problems affecting certain segments of our population which have been more than 200 years in the making. But as great as these problems may be, their magnitude must not deter us from making a beginning," he said about the commission’s findings, on Human Rights Day, December 10, 1962. "Progress will be slow and will depend very largely on the cooperation of all our citizens. We must remember that the social and economic problems of minority groups, who for one reason or another are not enabled to occupy their rightful place in the community, adversely affect us all." Stemming from the commission, the LTCA was born as a simplified process to finally grant title to African Nova Scotians. But well-intentioned as the LTCA was, it did not go so far as ensuring the government provided clear title to all residents. Instead it relied on residents to apply for title. The process required applicants to hire a lawyer, largely because the department charged with reviewing applications was either categorically rejecting them or not moving them forward. Applicants also needed a lawyer to write the deed, and a surveyor to set out the metes and bounds of the land. You might be thinking, Well, that makes sense. I had to hire a lawyer when I bought my house. There’s simply a cost to doing that. But that is not what is happening here. The government failed to provide title when it was obliged to do so. The very same department embarked on a decade-long project to clear up titles on 28,000 properties in Cape Breton, in Richmond and Inverness Counties. That project wrapped up two years ago, and no one had to apply. The government went in and cleared it up because it had made an error in not providing clear title 100 years earlier. For North Preston and the other LTCA areas—13 places in total, including Cherry Brook, Little Lorraine and Drumhead—this is not something the government is willing to do. click to enlarge 250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston Province of Nova Scotia Detail showing North Preston from the province's LTCA map: The Supreme Court ruled in favour of residents, so now lands and forestry minister Iain Rankin should do the work to stop his department from giving them the runaround. Dwight Adams, from the North Preston Land Recovery Initiative, explained in an interview with CBC back in 2016 that it was his understanding that historically individual LTCA applicants “were always given quite a bit of a runaround” from the government. It is rumoured that the department had a number of applications that were ongoing and unilaterally closed the files without reason in the 1990s. In 2017, after much pressure on the government and the formation of a group of pro bono lawyers to assist with files (thanks in large part to Angela Simmonds, a North Preston resident and lawyer), the government announced $2.7 million dollars worth of funding to try to address the issue of land titles and said that it was considering “amending legislation [the LTCA and possibly other legislation including the Probate Act] to reduce barriers”. In the Department of Natural Resources (the prior iteration to the Department of Lands and Forestry) 2017-18 work plan, a performance indicator was a “Percentage increase in number of properties in East Preston, North Preston and Cherry Brook for which the land title has been clarified.” I have no idea how they planned to make that happen, since the department was–and still remains–entirely dependent on residents bringing forward applications and then having the stamina to endure the horrifically bureaucratic process, which, by all appearances, seems to have as its goal to deter applicants from applying and to close files as quickly as possible without approving them. I worked as a pro bono lawyer on a very straightforward file. It took over three years to secure title for my clients from the department, and even when the minister finally provided the Certificate of Title, the department’s lawyers tried to claim a further title search was required at my clients’ expense. Nowhere in the LTCA is the minister entitled to ask for or require that. I am loathe to think about how unrepresented claimants are treated. Recently, the department rejected an application because the applicant failed to prove that they have occupied the land for 20 years. This new purported 20-year “requirement” has no basis in law, and does the exact opposite of what the government expressed in its 2017 press release. Again, this was pointed out multiple times in consultation with the pro bono lawyers and various government departments since at least 2016. Instead of following the direction of those lawyers, the department began to apply that standard and put it up on its website that it was a requirement for applicants. Worse still, the department then had to defend its position, which was a hardline insistence on the 20-year adverse possession standard, in court. The minister lost in court and now the application has to be sent back to be reconsidered by the department again. The decision of Justice Jamie Campbell should not have come as a surprise to minister Iain Rankin, particularly in light of the fact that I had sent him correspondence directly outlining this issue months ago and, as is mentioned throughout this piece, lawyers from the pro bono project had been advising against his department using the 20-year standard—on the basis that it is wrong in law—for nearly half a decade. In a statement provided to CBC News last week, minister Rankin says, "We will continue to look for ways to streamline this process and remove barriers wherever possible.” For Rankin to say streamlining and removing barriers is something to “continue” suggests that this is work his department has actually been engaged in. Respectfully, that is baffling in the context in which this comment was made, which is as a direct result of his own department putting barriers up, which it had no authority in law to do. I will follow up with Rankin with respect to his now-public commitment to again review his department’s process, but, quite frankly, it is exhausting. I am always struck by the words of Fred MacKinnon, who sat on the Interdepartmental Committee on Human Rights from which this legislation was born. "I was struck by two very evident facts," he said about trying to move bureaucrats to do the right thing. "The first related to the long and laborious task of persuading public servants and politicians that change was essential and, if delayed, change would be thrust upon us and second, the leadership of the premier.” The LTCA needs real leadership. Minister Rankin has an opportunity to champion it. I think often of the hours, days, months and years community advocates and then lawyers have lent their expertise to the minister and his predecessor and that department. Despite Rankin’s most recent verbal recommitment to revising the LTCA process, I remain deeply concerned about the applications before the Department of Lands and Forestry. I hope Rankin is up to the task. ——— 
Robyn Schleihauf is a lawyer in Halifax. She runs a solo practice assisting professional regulators, human rights commissions and ombudsman offices with complaint files. She is interested in professional ethics, equity, diversity and restorative justice. You can find her at robynschleihauflegalwriter.com.

Read more at: https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/250-years-later-the-province-is-still-trying-to-shirk-its-promises-in-north-preston-24491363
250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston If you want an example of system racism in our province, look at the issue of land titles in our African Nova Scotian Communities By Robyn Schleihauf

Read more at: https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/250-years-later-the-province-is-still-trying-to-shirk-its-promises-in-north-preston-24491363
 
250 years later, the province is still trying to shirk its promises in North Preston If you want an example of system racism in our province, look at the issue of land titles in our African Nova Scotian Communities By Robyn Schleihauf

Read more at: https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/250-years-later-the-province-is-still-trying-to-shirk-its-promises-in-north-preston-24491363
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