Bill C-45 (Historical)

Cannabis Act

An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts

This enactment enacts the Cannabis Act to provide legal access to cannabis and to control and regulate its production, distribution and sale.
The objectives of the Act are to prevent young persons from accessing cannabis, to protect public health and public safety by establishing strict product safety and product quality requirements and to deter criminal activity by imposing serious criminal penalties for those operating outside the legal framework. The Act is also intended to reduce the burden on the criminal justice system in relation to cannabis.
The Act
(a) establishes criminal prohibitions such as the unlawful sale or distribution of cannabis, including its sale or distribution to young persons, and the unlawful possession, production, importation and exportation of cannabis;
(b) enables the Minister to authorize the possession, production, distribution, sale, importation and exportation of cannabis, as well as to suspend, amend or revoke those authorizations when warranted;
(c) authorizes persons to possess, sell or distribute cannabis if they are authorized to sell cannabis under a provincial Act that contains certain legislative measures;
(d) prohibits any promotion, packaging and labelling of cannabis that could be appealing to young persons or encourage its consumption, while allowing consumers to have access to information with which they can make informed decisions about the consumption of cannabis;
(e) provides for inspection powers, the authority to impose administrative monetary penalties and the ability to commence proceedings for certain offences by means of a ticket;
(f) includes mechanisms to deal with seized cannabis and other property;
(g) authorizes the Minister to make orders in relation to matters such as product recalls, the provision of information, the conduct of tests or studies, and the taking of measures to prevent non-compliance with the Act;
(h) permits the establishment of a cannabis tracking system for the purposes of the enforcement and administration of the Act;
(i) authorizes the Minister to fix, by order, fees related to the administration of the Act; and
(j) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting such matters as quality, testing, composition, packaging and labelling of cannabis, security clearances and the collection and disclosure of information in respect of cannabis as well as to make regulations exempting certain persons or classes of cannabis from the application of the Act.
This enactment also amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to, among other things, increase the maximum penalties for certain offences and to authorize the Minister to engage persons having technical or specialized knowledge to provide advice. It repeals item 1 of Schedule II and makes consequential amendments to that Act as the result of that repeal.
In addition, it repeals Part XII.‍1 of the Criminal Code, which deals with instruments and literature for illicit drug use, and makes consequential amendments to that Act.
It amends the Non-smokers’ Health Act to prohibit the smoking and vaping of cannabis in federally regulated places and conveyances.
Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Cannabis Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Indeed, we do not. Ring the bells.

And the bells having rung:

We now have quorum.

The hon. member for Peace River—Westlock.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in my estimation, and pardon the pun, this legislation seems to be sucking and blowing at the same time. We are at the point where the stated goal of the legislation is to keep marijuana out of the hands of children. The government has repeated that line over and over again.

My premise is that if something is illegal, that sends a signal to children that there is something wrong with that product and they probably should not be doing this. Speeding is illegal. We say people should not go over 100 kilometres per hour. People do, but it still is illegal. It indicates the norm, essentially.

We have a product that is dangerous to children's health. It has multiple complications. The medical community has said to step back and look at it, that when youth are consuming it, specifically under the age of 25, things happen that are not good. Psychosis and schizophrenia have been tied to marijuana use. There are mental health issues in general and addiction issues. All these things come into play.

Currently it is illegal, so when we tell our kids they should not smoke marijuana because they could suffer from paranoia or schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, we also say it is illegal. If those reasons do not convince them, maybe the fact that it is illegal will.

Now we are going to be legalizing it but working to keep it out of the hands of children. That is where I get the idea that we are sucking and blowing with this. We are saying one thing one moment and another thing the next moment. We are saying that we want to keep it out of the hands of children, but we are going to legalize it. In my world, those two things do not compute. If we want to keep it out of the hands of children, we should restrict it more, and maybe we have to work on some of the other things, like education.

That is my opening point.

I am going to harken back to some things I read in the past. I am going to refer to the work of C.S. Lewis. He talked extensively about a vast array of things, but one of the things he talked about was how we function as a society.

There are rules that are not necessarily laws in society. They are rules that allow us to operate cohesively as a society. He said there are three aspects we have to take into consideration when we operate in society. His gave the example of society as a fleet of ships travelling across the ocean. He said we have to look at all the rules in society as if we were a fleet of ships. First, we need to make sure that the things inside the ships work well. We have to make sure the engines are running, the rudders work properly, and the hulls are intact and have no holes so they do not sink. We have to make sure the navigation systems are working properly. All these things are very important.

He says that as a society, we have to ensure that the things inside of people work well as well. We have to make sure that their physical health is good, that their mental health is good, and that they are safe from the outside.

That comes to the second point he makes. He says we cannot have these ships crashing into each other. If we are going to make it to our destination, if we want to keep our ships without leaks and make sure our steering systems still work, we cannot have ships crashing into each other. If we crash into each other, we could damage the steering system or the hull and cause a leak. Therefore, we have to make sure we have rules to keep systems in place that keep the ships from crashing into each other.

On the other hand, he said, that if they were a fleet of ships and they wandered apart from each other, there would be no point in their being a fleet anymore. They would just be one ship in the night essentially. He said that was as important as the other. There were two things they had to be very careful with: that they did not drift apart, but also that they did not crash into each other. That was tied in, again going back to the first level of where they had to ensure all the things inside the ships were working properly.

Finally, he said that they needed to ensure that all the ships in the convoy got to their destination. If these ships had left Bristol, going to New York and they ended up in Sydney, they would not have accomplished what they set out to do. The end goal, where the ships were going, was just as important as the navigational systems. If the navigational systems were not working, they probably were not going to make it to where they needed to go. Therefore, all three levels were very important: what happened inside of the ship, what happened between the ships, and that the ships made it to where they were trying to go.

When we deal with the issue of legalizing marijuana, all three of these levels come into play. In this debate, we typically only talk about the interplay between the ships. We say that if we use marijuana, there will not be any collisions between the ships so we will probably be okay. However, that does not take into account the idea that perhaps the ships will drift apart. We do not often consider that. However, individuals within a society drifting apart is just as dangerous and tragic as crashing into one other. We have to look at that as well.

The other thing we have to look at is what happens within the ships, within individuals. I have mentioned some of those things before.

For particular people who use marijuana, especially youth, the Canadian Medical Association has been strong on the fact that schizophrenia, bipolar, paranoia, and depression can come from marijuana use. Therefore, we might say that people must keep their ship in order, keep their navigation systems working properly, and keep their steering systems working properly, so they should not use marijuana. We might also say that marijuana can affect people's relationships with their parents, their spouse, and their children. Therefore, we want to ensure that their marijuana use takes that into consideration. As a society, we might tell them to be careful so they do not drift apart.

Finally, as a society, we want the best for the people. That is why we are having this very discussion. We are saying that we do not think children should be using marijuana because it is bad for them, that later on in their life they will regret their actions. Therefore, we should be discouraging marijuana use.

I have laid it out in those terms and that gives people the idea of why we are opposed to the sucking and blowing that is essentially happening here. We want to keep it out of the hands of children but we will legalize it.

I hope I have laid a picture, using C.S. Lewis' picture of morality and ships. It was a good picture, in this instance. We want to ensure we make it to New York, we make it to a fulfilled life. I am concerned about that.

We all know individuals who have struggled with marijuana use and it has had detrimental effects in their lives. When they were 15, they began smoking marijuana. Now they are in their 40s, they not only struggle with marijuana use, but also with where their life has gone. They feel life has passed them by.

This is an article about a 34-year-old gentleman from Toronto. His name is Mike Stroh. He said that he was part of a generation who grew up smoking current strains of marijuana, which had been genetically selected to produce a powerful high, with THC levels of about 20%. That was up from around 7% in the 1960s and 1970s. He said from the age of 13, he got high almost every day until he was 30. He was into sports and he wanted to do stuff at school, but he could not make it to practice, could not make it to tryouts because he was either up at night selling drugs or trying to get them, falling into a drug induced coma and then waking up in a mess.

I hope I can finish my remarks in questions and comments.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I was drawn back to the debate because I thought we were talking about the federal marine act for a while there. The nautical references and the shipping descriptions left me a little confused. Then I heard at the end the member get back into harbour with an issue which he could actually tether to a dock.

What I can never understand from members of the Conservative Party, and perhaps the member opposite can help me, is that they describe a drug, which they see is so profoundly dangerous, that it can only be left in the hands of criminals to give to children. If it is as dangerous as the member says it is, if it has consequences and we believe it to be true, the bill seeks to prevent it from getting into the hands of children. We do the same with alcohol. Even though it has been legalized, it cannot be sold to children. We do not let young people drive cars even though it is legal. We put firm rules in place. We enforce those rules and we keep roads safe, keep people away from alcohol, and hopefully keep people who should not indulge in cannabis away from it.

If it is so dangerous, the current situation has led to the horrible story the member told. The current situation is the medical evidence. The illegal manufacturing and production of it is what has led to these incredibly strong strains because we have left it in the hands of criminals, Why will the member not support a process that strictly regulates the chemical content, strictly regulates who shall and shall not have it, and remains illegal for young children to smoke? Why would the member suggest that leaving it in the hands of criminals is more safe?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that gets back to my opening statement. This is about sending a signal to society. I do not think we are sending the right signal when we say in one breath we want to keep it out of the hands of children and in the next breath we will legalize it.

I am not the only one who is a little confused about what we are trying to achieve with this legislation. Dr. Diane L. Kelsall of the Canadian Medical Association said there were a number of things wrong with the legislation, but if it were truly an intent to produce “a public health approach and to protect our youth this legislation is not doing it.”

The medical world does not believe we are trying to keep it out of the hands of youth by legalizing it. It is an oxymoron position. If we want to keep it out of the hands of youth, legalizing it is not achieving that end.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. I like seeing in these images the idea of social cohesion and consistent regulation.

The government across is not taking the necessary precautions with the provinces and is not beginning by creating programs to get youth under the recommended age for using this product off the street. No preparatory program has been put in place, and everything is being downloaded onto the provinces.

During question period, I heard the Prime Minister say that in order to decriminalize simple possession, first the law had to be obeyed. He said that the law remains the law. This means that once people suddenly learn that it is legal, the number of users will increase. However, there is still nothing with respect to prevention.

I would like to hear from my colleague about this.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's rapt attention to my speech. It is easier to speak when I have a little response.

To his point on prevention. During the last government, we implemented programs to reduce the usage of marijuana, specifically for age group from 15 to 25. We saw a significant reduction in the usage of marijuana. That was an avenue to take. If we were interested in reducing the usage, there may have been some avenues, particularly when we have this massive deficit. If Liberals wanted to put some more money into things like that, I am sure they could have found some money.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be joining this debate at this late hour and also the debate on the amendment that was proposed by my colleague, the member for Niagara Falls, seconded by my colleague, the member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

I want to start, not with a Yiddish proverb, but with a quote by H.L. Mencken, who once said, “ For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong”.

This legislation is just that. It is wrong. It is not wrong on principle, but it is wrong in its execution of its goal. The problem with the recreational use of cannabis is not addressed by the legislation. In fact, it would do the complete opposite. It would make it easier for people to use it for recreational purposes.

Before I continue, I should probably be clear. On the principle of the matter, I am not opposed to ending or reducing prohibition on non-synthetic narcotics, specially on marijuana. I actually held a tele town hall yesterday evening with constituents in my riding. It was made very clear to me that there were a great deal of users who used it for recreational purposes and another group of people who used it for medical purposes.

In the time I am afforded in the House, I will go piece by piece to different sections of the legislation to point out errors in drafting, mistakes on principle, poor execution, and bad goals, simply put.

In the preamble, it does not even cover the black market. There is nothing in the preamble with respect to the black market. I have talked about this before and I have asked members of the Liberal caucus who are not members of the cabinet why that was.

Section 7, under “purpose”, only uses the word “deter”; it does not use the word “eliminate” the illicit activity. Because it does not say that, I very much feel the government is failing from the very beginning. The goal of this should have been always to eliminate the black market, not deter it, not reduce it, eliminate it. That should have been the goal from the very beginning, and the government fails from the very beginning because it does not have that goal in there.

Decriminalization and/or legalization must be about ending the black market. It also has to be about making it as difficult as possible for those who are involved in illicit activities today to whitewash and to be able to transfer the assets they have illegally obtained into legal assets so they can then use to continue a business activity into the future. Whether these are assets they procured, or bank accounts they have, or simply a business they have created for themselves, they should not be able to continue that business with the same assets in the future. “Deter” is the wrong word to use in Section 7 of this bill.

There is also poor drafting in this legislation. I want to point this out because Parliament should not be granting justices, the court system, the ability to levy unlimited penalties on organizations, corporations, or persons. That is exactly what it does in subsection 8(2(a)(iii)), where it says that it is up to the discretion of the court. There is no limit on the financial penalty that can be levied on an organization.

Sure, an organization will be found guilty by the time this comes to the point of sanctioning it with some type of fine or penalty, but it is not right for Parliament to say that it can be unlimited penalty to be determined by a judge and he or she will simply decide what the penalty will be. That is not good legal drafting. It is not a good legal concept. It also is not right to do it in such way that it does not give businesses the certainty on how the law will be applied. It also affords far too much leeway to the justices.

On international treaties, I have raised this before in the House. On a previous late sitting, I asked the questions about the three international treaties to which Canada was party. I find section 11(1) of particular interest. Again, it goes back to the principle is wrong on a section and the drafting is poor. It says, “ Unless authorized” import or export of cannabis is prohibited.

Canada is a party to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. We have not received any clarity from the government, or any member of the government caucus, on when it is going to pull out of these treaties.

When is the government going to give notice to our international partners that it is indeed going to pull out of these treaties? If the government is going to be seeking amendments to the treaties or an exception for Canada, it should say so. It should tell our international partners.

We have an international reputation, and over the previous nine years while a Conservative government was in place, we actually improved. People knew that when Canada stood on the international stage, it stood on principle. People may not have liked the principle that Canada was standing up for, and that was fine, but they knew that when Canada spoke, it spoke on principle. What kind of principle does this enshrine, when we say one thing and do another?

That is Liberal Party policy, but it very much should not be that of the Government of Canada when it is speaking to our international allies, to our partners. We signed a treaty, we ratified it, and we agreed to its content, but we are not really sure if we are going to back out of it, so we say one thing and do something else. Now we do not know.

Specifically under subclause 11(1), it says, “Unless authorized under this Act, the importation or exportation of cannabis is prohibited.” I very much feel the act should simply say, “No import. No export.”

What possible export market could there be? Is it part of the revenue-generating aspirations of the government to potentially find an export market for Canadian cannabis and perhaps charge a licensing fee? Maybe it will charge an extra customs fee. Really, Parliament should be approving an act that will say no export and no import from any other country. The production should be in Canada. It must be, yet this is the direction that the government has taken.

On drafting, another portion of the act I find very peculiar is “Cultivation, propagation and harvesting—young persons and organizations”. Then it says the following:

Unless authorized under this Act, it is prohibited for a young person or an organization to cultivate, propagate or harvest any cannabis plant or any other living thing from which cannabis may be extracted or otherwise obtained, or to offer to do any of those things.

Those are popular words of the Prime Minister, “those things”. On this particular point, I find it interesting, because what is going to happen if parents have in their homes four plants, which this legislation allows for? Can a dad call home and ask his 15-year-old to water the plants for him? Does this section actually make it illegal? If they are not supposed to be doing that because they are not supposed to be interacting with these plants, does this portion of the act make watering that plant illegal? The government keeps saying that this will better protect kids and children, but how are we going to enforce it? How is it actually going to work? How does that make it any better than before?

I have three young children and I am one of the younger members of the House. I remember my times in high school. This is often a comment I hear from other members in this House, especially in the government caucus. They say it is so easy for kids to obtain it today anyway, so really there is no difference between the legislation and maintaining prohibition as it is right now.

I do not think that is the point. I am talking about the specifics of the legislation. There is poor drafting and poor execution. That is where it matters. This are 33 regulations. The bill is half-baked. We have a portion of the legislation that is already there in place that we are voting on, and then there are 33 regulations. The meat, the context, the actual execution of the matter is going to be left up to the executive council, to members of the cabinet to decide. I do not think that is right. We should be voting on a complete piece of legislation, not just on the little tidbits that the government wants to allow us to vote on. Too much is left up to the executive.

I know I only have two minutes, so I do have a Yiddish proverb: a guilty man is always self-conscious.

I really do hope members of the government feel guilty at this point, because the points they have made on the legislation, the reasons they are doing this, will not be achieved. None of their stated goals will be achieved. The PBO's report predicts an increase in consumption for 15-year-olds and older by 2018, from 4.6 million users to 5.2 million users by 2021. In fact, The PBO even predicts that the price necessary to generate enough revenue for the Government of Canada to actually make this worth it and destroy the illicit black market would be so high it would never happen. The revenues would never be generated in the volume that the government expects.

Why are we doing this? If we are not going to be eliminating the black market, why are we going ahead with such legislation? Why is it not it in the purpose? Why is it not in the preamble? Why has the government not made an effort to draft complete legislation that does not require 33 regulations and orders in council so that it can complete its work?

I simply cannot support this legislation.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I first want to suggest to him that one of the important functions of this bill and federal legislation is to create a regulatory framework for the development of a robust system of regulation to control production, distribution, and consumption of this drug.

We are talking about strict regulation. The regulation does not necessarily appear in this bill, but this legislation begins the process of enabling Health Canada, for example, to build a robust system of regulatory control to ensure that there is strict control of the production within that regulatory framework. It would also enable provinces to introduce their regulations to control the distribution of the substance and enable provinces and municipalities to put in place strong regulatory control so that we might have safer, healthier, and more socially responsible use of this drug than currently exists.

I know the member opposite agrees with me that the current situation is unacceptable. We have the highest rates of cannabis use among our kids. It is completely controlled by organized crime, and we have to do a better job. If we are not going to strictly regulate this drug, what would the member opposite do? I cannot imagine that the status quo would be satisfactory to him.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have had conversations with the member and I appreciate that as the former police chief of Toronto—I know I got it wrong before, but I will get it right this time—he raises good points. Prohibition on cannabis has been hit or miss, successful in some situations and a failure in others. I remember my time in high school long ago—and I will assure the member that it was long ago—when it was easy to find a dealer at the high school. It was easy for people to figure out.

The execution is in the legislation, and this is a typical politician's dilemma: there is a problem, and I must do something. The government has proposed this as doing something, but this bill is not doing anything. This is not achieving the goals the government set out for itself. This is just delay. Thirty-three regulations will have to be passed, and as a former member of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, I remember how tedious it was to go through every single government regulation being proposed to assure ourselves that the content was correct and met the 13 principles set out when the committee was formed. I simply do not see this being achieved with this legislation. It is a failure from the very beginning.

It is interesting that the member says there will not be strict regulation. We heard the complete opposite from the member for Spadina—Fort York, who said there will be very strict regulation. Liberals have to decide. Is it strict or is it not strict? Are they going to be telling the provinces what types of regulations to pass or not?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it will be difficult for the Liberals to make a decision on that, because they are improvising. It was sad to hear the Prime Minister say today that until the law is changed the law remains the law and people must obey it. When he said that, we were talking about the legalization of marijuana and the many people who are being handed criminal records for simple possession. When the law is changed, there are going to be plenty of people who will have cannabis-related problems.

What if the Liberals had a financial stake in the companies that organize awareness campaigns on the dangers of smoking pot before the age of 25? Would those campaigns be launched first or would the Liberals still start with pot production just for the heck of it?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments and his excellent question.

Of course the Liberals are improvising. We have seen it in the budget, in the way cabinet members are chosen, and in the way the Liberals decide what they will do for question period, namely whether the Prime Minister will be there or not, and whether he will answer all the questions.

The government has spent a few million dollars on a program to educate the public about the effects of cannabis on young people. However, the State of Colorado in the United States spent $45 million on an education program for youth, and that was before passing a law that gave them access to cannabis.

We would have liked to see the government launch an education program for youth to show them that smoking cannabis is not necessarily the best way to spend their time in high school. We will see in the next budget whether there is any money for public education on cannabis targeted at youth. There is some money committed in budget 2017, but the Liberals are still improvising.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to talk about Bill C-45, the cannabis act and the complications it will create, the planning that is necessary, and more importantly, what should be done for many Canadians as the legislation moves to implementation.

One of the things that concerns me the most is that we will continue to criminalize Canadians. That will be quite substantial for their record, especially given that our neighbour to the south, the United States, has a much broader definition of a criminal record as it relates to marijuana possession. Despite state movements to legalize and decriminalize cannabis, border complications become an impediment to this idea.

Liberals do not even care about the substantial repercussions. They are indifferent to the fact a life can be changed significantly by a federal criminal charge and the consequences of that charge for the rest of that person's life.

What is more interesting is that as we move toward legalization, we see a culture that becomes a little more emboldened before the law changes. We see it every single day out on the streets. People may accidentally get bold with this.

In fact, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice mentioned one of those things. He mentioned a case in which a person now has a federal criminal record. He is concerned about more of those. That can happen, and there are consequences, especially in border communities. Given the fact that 80% of Canada's population lives close to the U.S. border, we will have implications.

In the area I represent, 10,000 doctors and nurses commute daily across the border. Thousands of auto workers commute across the border on a daily basis. We have an aging population now, and the first chance in a while for some people to get good-paying, career-oriented jobs, with benefits and a return on investment on their education. If they make a mistake now—if they are around cannabis, or somehow get caught up in a charge as we are making this transition—it is not good.

Let us not confuse what can be done right now, and decriminalization can be done right now, independent of what we are doing here. It is as simple as that.

The Liberals choose not to do this, to instead hang those people out to dry in the interim, because if a truck driver, a nurse, or a doctor happens to have a teenager or someone else with marijuana in their household, or if they are around it or smell of it or any of those different things, they could be implicated at the border.

Worse yet is if they have a charge already. I know many professionals that we have to deal with on a regular basis who are so important to the Canadian economy and will forever need constant management on the border. That is what we do out of our office. We work over and over on certain cases. They have no other criminal record, no other consequential involvement, only good employment records and contributions to the community. This is where the bitter irony resides, from this moment on until we finally move to legalization.

All those victims in between the chaos—the ones who are emboldened to do it, the ones who get side-swiped during the transition, and the other ones who are going to crack down on it—will have their lives altered.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister will walk free and clear. He could do that because he thought it was just a popular thing for him to say. He had been elected as a member of Parliament and he bragged about the fact that he smoked marijuana, a criminal offence in Canada. Is it not a little ironic that he has a security detail around him and the known fact that he has participated was willingly expressed? The fact is that we still do not know to this day where that marijuana came from. Where did the marijuana come from that the Prime Minister smoked? Did it come from a friend, a family member?

The fact is that his life never changed as a consequence. He used it as a political opportunity, whereas the people I represent cannot get their records cleared. They are working day in and day out with no other problems but are affected by this thing from 10, 20, sometimes 30 years ago.

As we go down this path, we will continue to have those people who are caught at a disadvantage because they are not the elite. They are not the ones with the family name. They are not the ones from the political corridors of this chamber or other chambers. Despite this being the House of Commons, and it has been for many decades, we will see them suffer a different fate from that of our own Prime Minister during this entire thing. That is a problem. That is called elitism because someone is separate or above the law and can flaunt it for political gain. In fact the political gain is an economic gain, but if someone happens to be a truck driver, a business person, or anyone else, they have that blemish on their record forever.

Why can we not fix that right away? The Liberals simply do not want to. It is interesting because we have heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice talk about criminalization, organized crime related to this, which is very true and very important to deal with, but he was the same as the Prime Minister in voting against single-event sports betting, which has $8 billion to $10 billion of organized crime and offshore betting accounts stuffed to the limit because we do not allow it. It happens in bars, in basements, with the click of a mouse, or off of a phone, and it goes offshore with no taxation. That $8 billion to $10 billion are modest estimates and the Liberals voted against even putting that to committee. The bill was supposed to at least get to committee. It had actually passed in this chamber before and it failed in the Senate. The Liberals decided to stop it right here and not to send it to committee.

There is very little credibility left for them with that argument. Canadians who are actually arrested, no matter where they are from, from the day of tabling of legislation here until the day it is not, will have to ask themselves, and they will get an opportunity to reflect, why is it okay for some to puff up their chests and smile with bravado and say they are cool because they smoked marijuana and do it for their own interests, whether it is political or otherwise, and not get a record, not be held to account, at the same time as others face a record that includes criminality that will affect them and their lives just because they were not the elite.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I asked a similar question earlier, but I got a somewhat difficult response that I did not really understand, so I would like to ask it of this member.

There have been a number of people from his end of the bench who have been suggesting that we should, as an interim measure, decriminalize cannabis. Decriminalization is simply replacing the current criminal sanctions to enforce a prohibition with civil penalties. It would maintain the prohibition. It would not allow for any kind of regulatory control of production, distribution, or consumption, but it would impose a system of civil penalties. It requires legislation. It requires a new infrastructure that would enable law enforcement agents to enforce those new penalties with a ticketing scheme. It would require substantial investment in the training of police officers.

Given all of that rather complex requirement, could the member advise me if he has given any thought to how he might go about implementing decriminalization as an interim measure, given that it would require legislation and a significant investment in infrastructure and training for police officers? Has he any thought of what it would cost and how long it would take?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to share that. First of all, I would not ram through legislation, like this minister and his colleagues are doing, in an omnibus bill. I would actually do it separately and I would bring the testimony of witnesses through the parliamentary process. That is what could have been done a long time ago. It does not have to take place now. Therefore, he is throwing that back on us because of the Liberals' incompetence and lack of political will. The fact that their own Prime Minister is sitting in his own personal electoral trap on this issue has come back to bite him, hence that is why he is doing it.

As for the cost and all those things related to decriminalization, that is always the Liberals' excuse for something that they do not want to do, but they always find the money for their friends, and similar to this, the Prime Minister.

In terms of talking about role models, how is it that the role model, the Prime Minister, gets away scot-free, when ordinary citizens in my riding who pay taxes for his salary do not? As a former law enforcement officer, what does the minister think about that?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for bringing up an issue that is also of concern to me in my riding. I am also in a border community. We have people who work on both sides of the border and go back and forth, and a lot of cross-border transit there including trucking.

When President Trump has been clear he is not going to legalize marijuana and Canadians are going to be seriously impacted when they cross the border, I do not understand why the current government has done nothing to address that issue, in addition to the multiple treaties that the government is going to be in violation of if it does not take any action on that. It just appears to me that the government is in a huge hurry, without addressing any of the things that are the main concerns of Canadians. I wonder if the member could comment.