Justice committee  It is important to understand that we are talking about other people's property here and not the offender's own property. If it is someone else's property and that third party is innocent, his property cannot be confiscated.

Justice committee  Yes, provisions were indeed enacted in 2001 that deal with offence-related property. At the same time, this Part of the Criminal Code does include provisions whereby an innocent third party can defend his or her interests. In the case under discussion, if a person rented his house in good faith but someone else ruined it, the Crown would not be authorized to confiscate that property because it belongs to an innocent third party and not to the accused.

Justice committee  I am sorry, Mr. Ménard, but I did not understand the last part of your question.

Justice committee  I believe it is. Where a sale is involved, most of the time, it is for some form of consideration, normally money. So, there is a commercial aspect to it.

Justice committee  It certainly does exist. However, in the definition of “trafficking”, the possibility of a sale being involved is included, even though consideration per se is not mentioned.

Justice committee  Well, it is a little difficult to say because the definition of “trafficking” includes terms such as “give”, “transfer” and “carry”. Furthermore, if we add commercial trafficking, it is possible we will start to exclude certain activities that are currently included under the definition of “trafficking”.

Justice committee  No.

Justice committee  What I said was that the production of one plant, if the production was the purpose of trafficking, was caught.

Justice committee  No, it isn't. My answer was that if we can demonstrate that the production of that one plant--not prior cultivation incidents, but that one plant--was for the purpose of trafficking, then the six months could apply.

Justice committee  That's correct.

Justice committee  If it can be proven that he intended to do that, yes, that's correct.

Justice committee  I am sorry, but if you look closely at the wording in this provision of the bill, which is subparagraph 7(2)(b)(i), as amended, it reads: “imprisonment for a term of six months if the number of plants produced is less than 201 and the production is for the purpose of trafficking,”.

Justice committee  Paragraph 7 does not refer to kilos or weight; rather, it refers to the number of plants. In your example, he would have to produce fewer than 201 plants for the purpose of trafficking in order for the six-month minimum sentence to apply.

Justice committee  Well, I guess the question then is, what offence are we talking about here?

Justice committee  That's correct. If they're transporting cannabis, the transportation itself is part of the definition of trafficking, so they would be charged with trafficking.