Bill C-38 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

Committees of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to apologize to the hon. member.

The House leaders have come to an agreement, and I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That the Special Committee on the Non-medical Use of Drugs be reappointed to consider, when the House so orders, Bill C-38, an act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act;

That the committee shall have all the powers granted to standing committees by Standing Order 108;

That all evidence adduced by the Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the present and previous sessions be referred to the said committee;

That the members of the following committee be--

--and here, Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I will name the members--

--Carole-Marie Allard, Mauril Bélanger, Dominic LeBlanc, Derek Lee, Hon. Hedy Fry, Gilbert Barrette, Paddy Torsney, Randy White, Kevin Sorenson, Richard Marceau, Réal Menard, Libby Davies and Inky Mark; and

That the Clerk be authorized to make any changes to the Order Paper made necessary by this order.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I guess this is the supplementary question to the lead-off of her leader earlier this day. He wanted to know the business of the House as well.

I am pleased to inform the House that we will continue today debating the Alliance motion endorsing Dalton McGuinty's election platform, which we have been doing for the day. Later tonight Mr. McGuinty will be the premier.

Tomorrow we will resume third reading debate of Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies bill. When this bill is completed, we will then turn to Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments.

On Monday, should it be necessary, we would return to Bill C-13 followed by third reading of Bill C-36, the Archives and National Library bill.

We would then proceed to the report stage of Bill C-19, the first nations fiscal legislation. If necessary, I would then return to Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments, followed subsequently by Bill S-13, the census records bill.

I will be seeking also cooperation of colleagues across the way to further our discussion on Bill C-41, the technical corrections bill that we discussed informally earlier this day.

On Tuesday, we will debate the third reading of Bill C-17, the public safety bill.

Starting on Wednesday, I hope we will be in a position to deal with bills that have come out of committee, as well as dealing with any of the business just listed that has not been completed.

I would also like to indicate to the House that we have had conversations about the future of Bill C-38, concerning the use of marijuana. We also intend to put this bill before the House in the very near future.

Supply

[Kevin Sorenson, Canadian Alliance, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Chair, it is a pleasure to be here tonight and question the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General on some of the issues that the Canadian public are facing and are concerned about.

We have already had a number of members who have come into the House and raised concerns about the gun registry. Canadians from all across Canada are telling the government and each one of us that the gun registry does not work. Canadian police are telling the country that the gun registry does not work. Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino stated:

And I'm very devastated by the amount of gun-related violence that we're experiencing here in the city of Toronto; a tremendous increase over years gone by. The difficulty of course is that we haven't yet come across any situation where the gun registry would have enabled us to either prevent or solve any of these crimes.

The Toronto police chief is saying on the one hand that we are concerned about the increase in gun related criminal activity offences, yet there has not been one instance where this gun registry would have helped solve crime or prevented any of the crimes.

We have wasted a billion dollars on a program that is targeting law abiding citizens, hunters, farmers and ranchers, while police officers are lacking the resources to adequately do the job that they are concerned about. They are lacking the resources to prevent gang related deaths in Toronto.

In March police officers came to Parliament Hill to deliver their wish list for 2003. Topping their list was the protection of children and their concern about child pornography. Another concern dealt with pension accrual and club fed where police killers spend time in resort style prisons.

My question is for the Solicitor General. When will the Solicitor General stop throwing good money after bad and give police officers the resources they need to target their criminals? Why have local police agencies not received the funds that are needed to enforce the laws, such as have been prescribed in Bill C-38 that came down today on the decriminalization of marijuana?