Randy White

[Contraventions Act, February 25th, 2004]

This ill-informed minister says I do not know that. The fact is that I do know that. The fact is that anybody with that many joints is not a recreational user. Anybody who knows the industry itself would be smart enough to understand that, and anybody who smokes marijuana would tell us that as well.

It is interesting for all the folks listening to know that I am getting badgered by a minister of the crown, but what really gets me is the amount this individual does not know and does not understand and yet he would stand in here and support a bill that is really a very poorly performing bill and will not resolve the problem anyway.

The THC component of marijuana is more or less the addictive component and gives you the buzz, the high or the low or whatever one is going to get from it. Over the years it has increased from about 3% or 4% to around 15% or 16% now. In fact, the first recorded death by smoking marijuana was two weeks ago in England. The death was certified as directly attributable to marijuana smoke. The marijuana he was smoking was from Africa. The potency and the types of marijuana weed are increasing by leaps and bounds today. As more and different strains are developed, we are finding that there is basically no control. There are no parameters on the potency of the THC itself.

So today we are dealing today with a bill that considers, for a person with 40 joints, that the THC component of those 40 joints is approximately 8% or 10%. That will not necessarily be the case tomorrow or the next day, or five months or five years from now. The government is making a presumption based on something that is incorrect and no effort whatsoever has been made to deal with that aspect.

I want to say this: This country needs a national drug strategy. I have been around this country more than enough times dealing with addicted individuals. I have been in Europe, the United States, Mexico and throughout Canada, so I do happen to know what I am talking about on this issue and I initiated for Parliament itself the special committee studying the illegal use of drugs.

What is really required is a way to get our young people and elderly people off drugs. I find it reprehensible, actually, that the government would consider funding a shooting-up site in Vancouver when it will not put money into rehabilitation and detox facilities throughout this land. I find that reprehensible.

In fact, in my community alone, one facility has recently shut down. We had a rehabilitation facility for young, teenaged addicted girls. I went to the previous minister of health and said that we needed some money to keep it open. We had parents lined up trying to get their kids into that place. The government beat around the bush for four or five months and nothing happened. Nothing happened and these kids are out on the street. It is disgusting. Then I find out that the government is funding, in part, a shooting-up site.

Consider this. People who have children on drugs--and I know people who do--go to the government and ask for help for their child. Do we want a government that says yes, it will send people's children to a shoot-up site where they can shoot up in a relatively clean facility, or do we want a government that will take our children and put them in detox and rehabilitation? There is no choice for parents. I know what they would choose.

The government has to act as a judicious parent on these issues. It has to have a national drug strategy that looks at abstinence, not permission to use. It is sad that this has come to the House. The decriminalization of marijuana is a very minor part of a drug strategy, so minor it does not even rate. I am sad to see that today this is all the government can come up with.

[Contraventions Act, February 25th, 2004]

The minister says no, but the fact is that I have cases, many of them, which show that in the courtroom the criminals, the dealers, are getting away with the proceeds of crime more often than not. That is unfortunate.

The need to deal with the damages that are caused through grow ops, and crystal meth labs in particular, has to be dealt with somewhere along the line. Discussions have to take place between the federal and provincial governments and even the municipal governments.

More and more we are finding that young people in particular are buying houses that have been damaged through these kinds of operations. In fact, I have letter upon letter showing that young people bought a house with practically the last bottom dollar they had and they got into the house to find out that there had been severe damage done and they needed another $80,000, $90,000 or $100,000 to renovate the place before they could even move into it.

Damage is caused by playing with the electricals, by mould in the walls, by dangerous odours from crystal meth labs and so on and so forth, yet no discussion on this has taken place among all three levels of government. But we take in a law like this one and deal with only a very small aspect of the drug problem.

No legislation has been developed to curtail financial institution funding of mortgages related to grow ops. It may seem a little surprising, but there is one particular trust company in the country that has funded many grow ops. Here is what is happening. Individuals are putting their applications forward, typically using a certain type of job, a very low paying job, and the applications just get whisked through a particular trust company and approved.

In fact, I just finished dealing with one individual who has been on welfare for all nine years that he has been in this country. He came here with no money. He has been on welfare for nine years. I found out that now not only is he dealing drugs and has particular grow ops, but he owns three houses, all financed through the same trust company. Just how does he own three houses when he has been on welfare for the total time he has been here? The fact is that the proceeds of crime legislation cannot and will not take those houses from that individual.

So we have two situations. Now we have finance companies funding grow ops because it is lucrative and the cash is there, and it is non-tax-dollars cash, and we also have proceeds of crime legislation that is failing to do its job. In addition to this, there has been no coordination whatsoever among federal, provincial or municipal agencies on the welfare issue itself. I have, through my sources, dealt with welfare agencies that are finding more and more individuals on welfare who are using the grow ops as a source of income. Their source of income is much higher than before but the coordination in catching these individuals is not there. Those are the kinds of discussions that have to take place as well before we get into just simply finding an answer and calling it decriminalization.

No commitment has been obtained from the judiciary to increase penalties within the limits set out in this bill or to follow the established possession guidelines, and here is the problem. People are going to go into the courtroom, for certain, when they get caught with 31 or 33 grams of marijuana. The judge is going to say that up to 30 they can get a fine and the judge will not want to call them criminals just because it is 31 or 32 or 33 grams.

We are going to be on the slippery slope again. We are going to find ourselves with the judges out there saying that maybe they should make it 50, 60 or 100 grams, and that other places have 100 so they will have 100.

There has to be an agreement with the judiciary in this country that what we say in the House of Commons for fines and penalties is what we mean to have happen. It is totally inappropriate to have the judges once again make the rules and extend the penalties based on their perception of what they think is right. That has cost us a great deal of time, money and effort in this country as it is.

We are dealing with something called decriminalization, that is, giving a fine for the minor possession of marijuana. The government says that minor possession is for from zero to 30 grams. It says that zero to 15 is a fine and 15 to 30 is a fine or a criminal charge, but more likely than not it will be zero to 30 with a fine.

We have to understand that 30 grams is approximately 45 to 50 joints. An individual can walk around the school ground with that and get a fine. Anybody walking around with 35, 50 or 55 joints is not a recreational user. A recreational--

[Contraventions Act, February 25th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am a little surprised that I am in here speaking to the third reading stage of this legislation, the marijuana bill. I am very disappointed.

I do not think the government recognizes what it is dealing with here. In fact, the Prime Minister indicated to the country that he would make some substantive amendments to the bill from the previous prime minister's position but he did not do that.

Two days ago here in the House I had asked the Prime Minister about that. Basically he just smiled, shrugged his shoulders and put if off. It is ironic how one changes one's position on something, one's promises and commitments to a nation, once one becomes Prime Minister.

I will take my time going through what is wrong with the bill but, first, I must say to all people in Canada that we have studied the drug problems for about 18 months. We had about 41 substantive recommendations. Many of them were fairly good recommendations that would curb the problems with ecstasy, crystal meth, cocaine, heroin and so on.

However, when the government realized that those recommendations were somewhat conservative in nature, it moved right ahead and threw in this decriminalization of marijuana, got everybody else off the agenda of that, and went on with the bill here.

That was really quite irresponsible because the problems with drugs do not end with the decriminalization of marijuana. That is the real issue here. What the country does not have at this point is a national drug strategy. People are dying every day from drug overdoses and from addictions to all sorts of drugs, whether they are prescription drugs or crack, heroin or crystal meth. It is absurd to think that we are here talking about the decriminalization of marijuana when there is no drug strategy in place. That is the real problem.

I will go through the bill. We are talking about drugs. The Liberals have a hard time with this kind of issue. They are trying to find out what I am talking about, if members can believe it. I will go through the amendments that are not in this bill and the problems that have not dealt with in the bill.

I know I should not say anything about Liberals not being in the House when I am talking about this, but it is amazing when I am standing here speaking to such a precedent bill and there is nobody from the Liberals to listen.

First, the government is telling the country that it will get tough on marijuana, so it puts in maximum penalties for grow ops. It has said that it is really going to push hard on the grow op side of it, that four to 25 plants would constitute an offence punishable by up to $25,000 and/or 18 months in jail on summary conviction. Well that is fine, but where I come from in British Columbia, and in many parts of this country, telling a judge there is a maximum $25,000 fine for a grow op is laughable. The person would likely come out of there with a $500 fine at best. In most cases they would come out with a slap on the hand and told not to do it again. They walk away and laugh, then go start another grow op, and on it goes.

Maximum fines would be all right if judges and lawyers understood the issue and applied those fines, but they do not, and it is not happening right across the country. What is required are minimum fines for such operations so that judges understand that there is a minimum penalty for these things. Giving the discretion to the courtroom is a mistake. I do not know how many times I have tell that to the government. It is not listening. When the government tells Canadians that it is getting tough on this grow op business, it is not.

Let us look at some of the other things the government did not address in the bill.

The government said there would be fines for minor possession. The fines are different for adults than they are for young people. When I pursued this in the justice committee and in the drug committee, the answer from the other side was that young people could not afford the fines. If they can afford the marijuana, they can afford the fines. The propensity to say that they are young and therefore the fine should be lower for them than for an adult is ridiculous. The government is sending a message to young people that it is cheaper for them to get caught. It is wrong.

Something else in conjunction with this legislation is that no resources have been provided for police to crack down on organized crime that is profiting from lax enforcement. The government says that it will put in this great program to cut down on drugs but it does not provide the resources to the police departments. What are the police going to do? Are they going to pick up from the explosion of grow ops and the explosion of the drug trade in hard drugs? I think not. The government has to put some money where its mouth is on this issue.

Let us look at what else the government did not address in the bill.

The proceeds of crime legislation was not amended to adjust for drug seizures. It was not touched at all. In fact, I can go through a litany of cases, and I have them here, hundreds, if not thousands of cases.

Madam Speaker, the guy over there who proposes to be a minister does not understand the concept so he is heckling. I do not mind the heckling; I kind of enjoy it. I wish he were smart enough to understand the consequences of what they are not doing. That is the problem with this government. It sends in a few ministers who do not know what they are talking about but try to understand a system as serious as drug problems in the country.

Let me go through it. The proceeds of crime legislation has to be amended. The issues are these. In many cases in the country, for grow ops in particular, for crystal meth labs, or for the trafficking of harder drugs, the cars they are driving, the money they are making, often goes back to the individuals. In fact, I've had cases--

[Sponsorship Program, February 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, let us not try to divert the fact that the government has a problem with integrity in this country and how money got into the Liberal Party. That is what this country is concerned about.

What the government is using for an excuse is that all members of Parliament know about the sponsorship program and that is to justify the theft of money for the Liberal Party. I wonder if the Prime Minister knows the difference between knowing about a program and abusing a program. Does he know the difference?

[Sponsorship Program, February 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, how do I make that acceptable?

It is really getting embarrassing in British Columbia, quite frankly. The Minister of the Environment from Victoria doles out $50,000 to one of his Liberal associates with no legitimate substantiation and the Prime Minister's main B.C. organizer in his leadership bid is under investigation.

Would the Prime Minister mind telling us why he failed to incorporate financial integrity among his B.C. ministers and their administration?

[Sponsorship Program, February 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, what is really not acceptable is stealing money from the taxpayers for the Liberal Party. This is really embarrassing to the people in British Columbia. The Minister of the Environment from Victoria--

[Supply, February 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as long as we do not clone the NDP, I guess we are okay here.

When I talk about investing, I do so on the a basis of knowledge. My concern is with this kind of irrational process that is being presented here today. I do believe I am right when I say, for instance, the CEO and executive staff of a company believe in the traditional definition of marriage, then in their mind the company should not really invest in something that is contrary to their values, if they were a government, that is an absurd point of view.

There we go again. They are acknowledging that I am right, basically. The investment portfolio business is a complex one and a needy one. All I could ask is that the government try to spend its money a lot more wisely than it has in the past and perhaps it could put a few of these dollars into the Canada pension plan.

[Supply, February 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I must be missing something here. Is there any company in Canada that uses four year olds to make rugs? I am not aware of it. This kind of standard for investment in the Canada pension plan, if that the basis on which the NDP is working, I do not know. I do not know of any company in Canada that uses four year olds as child labour.

The fact of the matter is that the NDP has a disastrous record of investment in this country when it has briefly formed government. Its management style is based on issues like this, where the end result is that not only can it not make money, but it loses disastrous amounts of money and its spending efforts are usually worse than that.

Like I say, it can put this kind of motion to the House today, but there are big things facing this country right now and I wish the NDP would get along with the program and stop with this kind of philosophy where it thinks it is going to change the whole world of investment based on its values, because its values, quite frankly, within the operations and the investment portfolios of this nation, just do not fit.

[Supply, February 24th, 2004]

There we go. That is from the NDP. Basically she says yes. There we go. If it is a non-union company then that would be out of the investment portfolio of the CPP.

Could we imagine those kinds of values being brought in on behalf of our seniors who are waiting to retire and waiting for a certain amount of money to come to them at age 60 or age 65? I just cannot believe that we are facing this kind of logic here in the House today when we have so many better things to do. Quite frankly, this is going nowhere. There is little interest in it.

What we have today is a major catastrophe facing this nation on the ethical values of a government. Yes, we have concern over the funding of the Canada pension plan, yet these people across the way in the Liberal government have basically stolen $100 million or better and thrown it out the door. If we wanted to really do something for the Canada pension plan, we would go over across the way and say to them that if they would just put a little more ethics in their own activities, we would have a lot of money for seniors and could put it in the right direction. To stand here today in the House and to speak to some kind of value process perceived by the NDP in the investment portfolio of the Canada pension plan, I just cannot believe it.

Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Red Deer.

I want to speak about a couple of other things. The greater choice of the future of individuals lies in their ability to invest on the way through life. I would like to say that our party is in favour of looking at better options for investment, not just CPP, but options that perhaps would give better tax options to those who have RRSPs, greater flexibility to an RRSP style of fund, greater potential for increased income in their later years as opposed to reliance on just the Canada pension plan.

As we move into the next decade when we are going to see the Liberals replaced, I think we are going to see more of government potentially looking at seniors and how best they can be treated in terms of the maximization of their income at a fixed income level. I can assure the House and all those who are listening that it does not include a Canada pension plan that is based on investing in companies that have labour practices suitable to the government, contribute to environmental degradation, or whose conduct, practices or activities are similarly contradictory to Canadian values.

I also have invested in a number of environmental organizations over the years. Yes, I think that was my choice because I liked the kinds of products and the kinds of things they were doing in the environment, but also because I looked at the future growth and potential for myself and my family. It was not solely based on the fact that “it is a green plan, therefore I will invest”. There are many companies that are environmentally friendly that could not make a buck if they were in business for 40 years.

I can only say that I am disappointed that this kind of motion has been put forward to the House with such a crisis facing this country. I am also disappointed that some NDP members, if not all of them, are out there saying that this is the kind of logic they would put forward for all of the people retiring in Canada and this is what they would do for them. This program would be broke in a week.

[Supply, February 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as a person who has invested throughout many years and who knows the market fairly well, I would suggest, I did think that I would like to talk to this. This motion is actually laughable in a way. I will speak to that in a moment.

What really bothers me is that we have found the Liberals in this nation stealing money, virtually, from the taxpayer and handing it out to their buddies and back to the Liberal Party. The country is in chaos over it and the NDP brings up a motion to talk about investing in values in terms of the Canada pension plan: some days I wonder where these guys come from. I guess that is why we threw them out in British Columbia and do not want them back. That kind of philosophy pervades their investment strategy as well as their management style. That is one of the things that gets them into trouble every time they get into government for a very short period.

I do want to talk about this motion. I have to read it for those people who are listening because it really is hard to believe that somebody would present this in the House of Commons.

It states that the NDP wants the House to have the Canada pension plan, and I quote:

...guided by...investment policies which would ensure that...[the] investments are socially responsible and do not support companies or enterprises that manufacture or trade in military arms and weapons, have records of poor labour practices, contribute to environmental degradation, or whose conduct, practices or activities are similarly contrary to Canadian values.

Has anyone in their life ever heard such convoluted logic in regard to an investment? I do not think I have ever heard it before and I have been investing, as I said, for years. I will give some examples of this.

Some time ago, I invested in a company that makes cigarettes. Somebody tried to talk me out of investing in that company just because of a moral value, as these folks are. I actually waffled on investing in that one. I do not know how many thousands I lost on it, but this company had done very well in the market; those people who buy cigarettes, smoke cigarettes. The company had made a great deal of money. Those people who invested in that company did well, and better luck to them.

There are other companies I have invested in and I have done reasonably well. They are companies that have had strikes. The NDP would not invest in companies like that. It wants social values entwined into the mix of economic values when investing in the marketplace.

For instance, for a company whose CEO believes in the traditional definition of marriage, the NDP members would probably see that as coming under “contrary to Canadian values” in their minds if they were to form a government. Could we imagine such a financial decision on the Canada pension plan, on which all of our seniors depend for growth, being made by somebody who said to never invest in that company because the CEO believes in the traditional definition of marriage? Or, heaven forbid, for a company whose CEO is pro-life, it is not within the certain mix that they would consider a social value they like as a government. They would not go with that either. It goes on and on.

This is the party that brought in Bill C-250, if members will recall, that basically was going to outlaw the Bible as a document of valueless means, in its members' minds. With regard to a company run by a Christian or a very successful company that was run on Christian values, would they say no, they could not invest in it because that would be contrary to their “Canadian values”, as they would see them? We cannot mix those kinds of things in this package of investments. The thought process that goes on with the NDP is really something to listen to.

The fact is that the Canada pension plan is the basis upon which people work in this country and retire to at the end of their days. The investment people who are managing the portfolio have to be able to look at companies as to how best they can earn income, make profit and supply that portion of profit to the value that they invest in the plan itself. They cannot look at the values of a particular political party or the labour practices of a company. In whose value is the labour practice perpetrated? A company that is non-union? Is that a bad labour practice in the NDP's mind? Would we not invest--