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.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I have a second motion on Bill C-45.

When we heard from the witnesses, many issues came up that were not necessarily part of Bill C-45, but very impassioned discussion and concerns were raised around them. I was going to move that we request that the analysts draft a short letter, no longer than five pages, to be sent to the Minister of Health.

The letter would summarize the most credible evidence and best advice the committee had received regarding several discrete issues that we believe are important. On the list I had of discrete issues was the need for public health education and an awareness campaign; establishing metrics and baseline measurements to evaluate the success of Bill C-45; collaborative and respectful outreach and support to first nations, Inuit, and Métis communities to ensure appropriate implementation; legalizing alternatives, especially edibles; pardons for those who were charged or convicted of crimes now legalized by Bill C-45; and concerns regarding management of international treaties.

I would move that, but I would be open to adding to that list of issues or shrinking it.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes, I heard he's releasing it Thursday, but Wednesday an embargoed copy will come to us, which gives us, I don't know, 18 hours to internalize the PBO's report that they took months and months to write, costing out the largest social program envisioned by the federal government in a generation. We will not be in any position whatsoever to offer meaningful comment on that PBO report on the Thursday, if the PBO comes. It will do injustice to the PBO, frankly, to invite the PBO here on a Thursday, with that level of preparation.

I'm happy to co-operate with this sort of expedited process on Bill C-45, but I hope the Liberals will work with us in a good-faith attempt to make sure that we have time next week to really work on the amendments to Bill C-45, and then we can invite the PBO back in a couple of weeks.

I see John nodding. If that's the case, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Just from a structural point of view, I appreciate the desire of the government to move quickly, but I want to put on the record that I think this is moving too quickly. I won't belabour the point or repeat points made before, but I do think that carefully considering this bill is the proper way to go. I think we can all say that we learned a lot from the witnesses last week. I know I did. There were a number of issues that I didn't think of and a lot of points made that I wasn't aware of, so I would anticipate that if we heard from more stakeholder groups, we would probably continue to hear things that we weren't aware of, and learn things that we should know.

Having said that, I can tell that the government is obviously locked into an approach on this bill to rush it as expeditiously as it can through this committee and get it into the House.

I would point out as well that we have a full parliamentary year to get this bill passed by July 1. I've been in Parliament for nine years and I'm aware of the cadence. With the power of a majority government to impose time allocation when it wishes to, there's really no reason, I think, that we have to, as Mr. Oliver said, compress four months' work into one week. I don't think that's a healthy way to legislate and to properly consider this bill. We're going to move forward without hearing from a lot of groups that we should be hearing from, and without considering things that we ought to.

I also was going to move a motion that we tour, as committee travel, to visit a Canadian licensed producer of cannabis, a cannabis dispensary, a cannabis compassion club, and a producer of edible cannabis products so that we could actually have first-hand knowledge of what's going on in the real world, but I'm not going to move that motion because I know the Liberals will oppose it and won't do it given this timeline. That being the case then, with the motion before us, which I understand is going to be pressed by the government regardless of what the opposition has to say on it, I will make a couple of small suggestions.

October 2 is the day the Governor General is being sworn in at the Senate. My understanding from our House leader and whip is that the parties have secured unanimous agreement that we're going to be treating that Monday as a Wednesday, meaning that there will be no sitting of the House. We're treating it as if we have caucus meetings. I think it would be both inappropriate for us to be meeting at the same time that every other member of Parliament is invited to go see the swearing in of the Governor General and disrespectful, frankly, to the Governor General's office, for us to schedule work at the same time that important transition is taking place.

I also would propose that we start on October 3, which is the Tuesday, so we have October 3 to October 5, which is three days. I know John hasn't indicated in the motion how the committee will sit, unless I missed it. We haven't decided yet, but I'm in John's hands on that. If we want to go for eight hours a day, as we did before, or have multiple meetings, that's fine.

Of course, it's all moot at the end of the day anyway, because the text of the motion will deem the bill passed at a certain point on October 5, regardless of where we're at, so the motion takes away any attempt by the opposition parties to try to hold up the bill or be deleterious, which, for the record, the NDP has no intention of doing in any event. We have about, I'd say, probably somewhere around 10 amendments. I plan on speaking briefly and effectively to each one of those, not with a motive to hold things up but just to get our reasons on the record, so I see no reason why we won't be able to move through the clause-by-clause easily within the three days in any event.

It also, frankly, gives us one more day to get ready. We have a lot of material to go through, and I want to take a moment to congratulate all my colleagues on this committee on all sides for what I thought were a lot of penetrating questions on a lot of different issues. I've started the process of looking through the evidence that we heard, and there's a lot of it. A lot of it was very good.

One of the reasons I don't think we should start this clause-by-clause quite so quickly is that it forces us next week to have to process all of that information we received, analyze it, internalize it, place it into effective amendments, work with legislative counsel, make sure it's within the scope of the bill, and then have it translated in both languages, all within the next seven days. That's very tight for an important bill of this magnitude, but if we're going to do that, then at least we can have Friday and the Monday to get prepared for the clause-by-clause.

I'm going to speak to this a little bit later, but I do think we cannot adequately plan for the clause-by-clause study of Bill C-45 without also knowing our schedule for next week, so I'll take the opportunity now to say that it will be my suggestion—and I will move this at the appropriate time—that we don't sit on Tuesday or Thursday. I know that the PBO is planning to release his report on pharmacare, I think, on the Thursday, and I'll speak to that when it comes to that. But these two—

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I have two motions. I'll deal with them one at a time.

Just by way of introduction, in dealing with Bill C-45, I realize that the expert task force instructed part of Bill C-45. They travelled for six months across Canada listening to Canadians, and they received 30,000 submissions in the course of that work. Our committee, when we received the bill, heard from over 100 witnesses and received over 100 submissions. I think that was the count I had. Because of the efficient and, I think, very effective way that we dealt with it, we consolidated what would have been about four months of committee work into that one-week period. By my count, we as a committee in this sitting have not yet heard from 100 people on any other study. Even for our study on national pharmacare, we haven't heard from this many witnesses, so we have done extensive work.

We also heard that it was important that we get moving with the legislation. We heard from municipalities, police, and from one province that they really need to understand the federal legislation in order to do their next level of government work so that they can be ready to roll out in July 2018, which is the government's committed date to enact the legislation.

With that preamble, I would make the following motion:

That, the Committee, in its consideration of the Bill C-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts proceed as follows: a) that the Committee proceed with the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45 no later than October 2, 2017, provided that the Chair may limit debate on each clause to a maximum of five minutes per party, per clause; b) that amendments be submitted to the Clerk of the Committee no later than 5:00 p.m. on September 28, 2017 and distributed to members in both official languages; and c) that if the Committee has not completed the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45 by 6:00 p.m. on October 5, 2017, all remaining amendments submitted to the Committee shall be deemed moved, the Chair shall put the question, forthwith and successively, without further debate on all remaining clauses and amendments submitted to the Committee, as well as each and every question necessary to dispose of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill, as well as all questions necessary to report the Bill to the House and to order the Chair to report the Bill to the House as early as possible.

I would so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

All right. I hope everything goes as well as that one did.

Now the second thing on our agenda is the budget concerning the Bill C-45 study. We have gone overboard. We have a deficit and we need a new motion. We need approval of the new budget, which is an additional $33,800, or our witnesses who have already been here will not get paid for their expenses. This is a reflection of our 100 witnesses or so.

Do we have a motion to approve the budget? Thank you, Mr. McKinnon.

Is there any discussion?

(Motion agreed to)

All right. That's good.

Are there any other motions? I think, Mr. Oliver, you have a motion.

Export and Import Permits Act

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, thought what I had to say was very interesting. I appreciate the fact that you have brought attention to that.

Bill C-47 would also allow governments to create regulations that would demand firearm importers to report and keep all their import registry data for at least six years and have it available to government. In its simplest form, this is the start of a backdoor firearms registry. It would force the information of individuals to be registered with importers and sellers and be available to government. It sounds pretty much like a registry to me.

Moreover, these proposals will add costs onto the manufacturers and distributors of legal firearms, which will ultimately be passed down to the consumers, the purchasers of firearms. Somebody has to pay for this extra cost that will be incurred with Bill C-47.

When our previous Conservative government was in office, we listened to Canadians and eliminated the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. Instead of treating law-abiding firearms owners like criminals, we repealed the requirement to register non-restricted fire arms, long guns, rifles, shotguns, and provided for the destruction of all records pertaining to that registry held by the Canadian Firearms Registry under the control of the chief firearms officer.

While we removed the need to hold a registration certificate for non-restricted firearms, this did not change the requirement for individuals to hold a valid firearms licence in order to acquire or possess a firearm. They also had to pass the required Canadian firearms safety course, undergo a screening process, and obtain a registration certificate for restricted and prohibited firearms such as handguns. Through these changes, we recognized that recreational firearms users were not criminals. At the same time, we ensured that appropriate measures were taken to maintain public safety through licensing and gun safety education.

Acceding to the ATT could impose another burdensome bureaucracy on Canada that would mirror the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry our previous Conservative government eliminated. The same problems that we had with the gun registry, the lack of accountability, the immense costs, and the overall uselessness of it, are highly likely again under the ATT regime, unless amendments are made to it.

Interestingly, through Bill C-47, the Liberals are trying to bring back the registry through the backdoor with as little attention as possible.

The Liberals have a tendency to do this, introduce proposals they know will not be accepted by Canadians at a time when they hope it will go unnoticed. Take their recent massive tax hikes on local small businesses, farmers, and professionals as an example. The Liberals waited until the middle of the summer to sprinkle out these proposals when they figured Canadians were enjoying time with family and friends or perhaps were out of town on vacation. Of course, they made the consultation period run right through the fall harvest season, which would severely impact the ability of farmers to interact and contribute to the discussion on this very important proposal before us.

In a similar fashion, when this backdoor gun registry bill was introduced, the Liberals hoped that no one would hear about it. They introduced it at the same time as their marijuana legislation, both Bill C-45 and Bill C-46, the day before the Easter long weekend. The expectation here was clearly that this bill would fall under the radar while the marijuana bills dominated the discussion and the news cycle.

Whenever the Liberals insist on pushing forward with an agenda they know Canadians will not stand behind, this is their standard way of going about it. However, if they know Canadians do not support this legislation, as evidenced by the fact they are trying to keep it as low profile as possible, why are they trying to pass it at all?

Canada's export regime as it stands today is already among the strongest in the world. I think the Liberals would agree on that point. Canadian governments of all political stripes have always ensured Canadian values are reflected in export decisions and have taken steps to prevent illicit transfers that fuel conflict, encourage terrorism, or organized crime. It seems to me this is another Liberal solution in search of a problem. If it were benign, it would be one thing, but because it has the potential to negatively impact law-abiding Canadian farmers and hunters, we as Conservatives must speak out against this.

The Conservatives have taken a clear and principled stand. We believe that any arms trade treaty should recognize and acknowledge the legitimacy of lawful ownership of firearms by responsible citizens for their personal and recreational use. This includes Canadian heritage activities, such as hunting, sport shooting, and collecting. More than that, the legitimacy of these activities are recognized around the world, including those state parties to the ATT. Our previous Conservative government insisted that this be a part of any serious treaty on this subject.

For the Liberals to move ahead with this legislation without having received such a basic concession is disappointing. The Prime Minister may believe it will help him secure the United Nations Security Council seat that he wants so badly, but to do so would be at the expense of the rights of Canadian gun owners.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to start by bringing in some information from another jurisdiction, Colorado. This comes from a letter that was shared with us on the health committee in our study of C-45. This was a letter from the Governor of Colorado and the Attorney General of Colorado to the Attorney General of the United States. It says:

Following legalization, the state trained approximately 5,000 peace officers on marijuana-related laws, including driving under the influence of drugs; increased by 68 per cent the number of trained Drug Recognition Experts in the state—there are now 227 active DREs in Colorado—; and trained 1,155 peace officers in Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement. The state has also appropriated $2.3 million to the Colorado Department of Transportation's, CDOT, impaired driving education campaigns, which convey the criminal penalties and dangers associated with driving under the influence of marijuana.

It goes on to say:

In the first six months of 2017, the number of drivers the Colorado State Patrol considered impaired by marijuana dropped 21 per cent compared to the first six months of 2016.

That tells me two things. First, it shows that the police officers were better trained. They were able to recognize impairment presumably much better, yet the rate of impairment dropped. Second, it suggests the power of education, because I think that was probably a significant aspect of this undertaking. I have heard on the health committee, and on this committee as well as we studied both these bills, many witnesses speak to the effectiveness and the critical importance of education.

That brings me to you, Mr. Paris. I certainly appreciate what you're doing with your education program, and I really like your ad.

That brings me to my question. Mr. Lee, you are presumably part of the demographic targeted by this ad. Do you find it compelling, persuasive?

[Marc Paris, Executive Director, Drug Free Kids Canada]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, we welcome the opportunity to address this panel and to comment on the amendments to the Criminal Code, particularly as they relate to drug-impaired driving. Drug Free Kids Canada is a non-profit organization devoted to educating parents about drugs, raising public awareness issues surrounding drug use, and facilitating open conversations between parent and teen, in order to ensure that all young people will be able to live their lives free of substance abuse.

Since we are not legal or policy experts, nor do we have experience in law enforcement, we have chosen to focus our comments on the critical need to change how society in general and young people in particular perceive the risks involved with high driving, that is, cannabis-impaired driving. Although drug-impaired driving can involve more drugs than cannabis, our comments today mainly relate to Bill C-45, the proposed legalization of cannabis.

DFK’s position on drug-impaired driving is simple. We need to make the laws and ensure that our enforcement is as strict as possible within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A strong deterrent to driving while impaired by drugs must be in place, particularly when we’re about to legalize this psychotropic substance.

We have learned many lessons over the years related to alcohol, lessons that we need to consider with cannabis.

The first lesson was that wide distribution and intense marketing and promotion of alcohol created a normalization of this substance. We need to strictly control the sale of cannabis and definitely forbid any form of marketing or promotion, especially to minors.

Second, no matter what laws are in place, if we don’t educate and sensitize the public to the risks inherent with drug-impaired driving, we will continue to see carnage on our roads. Education at an early age needs to begin as soon as possible, before we legalize. People who are currently driving while impaired tend to be less impacted by public education messages. What influences their behaviour is when others, particularly their children, intervene.

There’s a great example of that from 50 years ago, when seat belts were first introduced. Early public safety messages on buckling up for safety were having poor results. Only when the focus was put on keeping kids safe by buckling them up did we see a change in societal behaviour. A positive change happened as a consequence of the child-centred focus of the new messaging. It’s when the kids asked the parents, “Why aren’t you buckling up, Dad or Mom?” that society began to see a shift in attitude and, ultimately, driving behaviour.

Last, the great and consistent work that has been done over the past 30 years by organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Students Against Drinking and Driving Alberta have contributed significantly to making drinking and driving socially unacceptable. We need to do the same with drugs now, especially cannabis. Impaired is impaired. The message has to be clear most importantly to our youth.

Our national tracking studies have consistently shown that teens don’t see driving under the influence of pot as being as risky as alcohol. This is particularly worrisome since these are young, inexperienced drivers who believe that smoking a joint and grabbing the car keys is okay.

Studies show that 16-year-olds to 34-year-olds represent only 32% of the Canadian population, but 61% of the cannabis attributable fatalities. This group also disproportionately represents 59% of the cannabis attributable injuries, and 68% of the people involved in cannabis attributable property damage-only collisions. This means that we have serious work to do with today’s young drivers and the future generation of drivers.

Another aspect parents need to be concerned about is that kids are getting into the car with a driver who is high. In a recent Ontario study, almost a quarter, 23%, of grade 12 students, admitted to having been a passenger driven by someone who had consumed drugs.

We are here to tell you that public education messaging works. In the past six years of doing national multimedia campaigns, we have seen that more parents are talking to their kids more often about drugs. We are seeing changes not only in attitudes but also in the behaviour of teens.

Drug Free Kids Canada has been creating impaired driving prevention education campaigns on our own for the past four years, but much more work will be required.

I would like to share with you our latest high driving campaign. It’s an innovative campaign using new technology to reach parents and kids. The Call That Comes After has been internationally recognized in Cannes and New York, as well as in Canada. More importantly, it has been viewed or downloaded over 40,000 times by parents and kids from coast to coast. The Call That Comes After was designed to help parents open up the conversation with their kids by using the most common communication tool between parents and kids, the mobile phone.

[Video presentation]

This campaign ran from January to June and will be repeated again next year for 17 weeks. If we don’t take preventative steps right now to educate the public, by July of next year we could be facing an increase in drug impairment on our roads, creating a significant hazard for the public. We must remind the government of its pledge to allocate a portion of the revenues towards prevention and education. To ensure that our youth and the public in general are protected, we need to provide effective education and prevention awareness strategies well before legislation takes effect.

Consistent messaging has worked for safety belts, anti-smoking, and drinking and driving. We can and must do the same for driving while high. This is the only way to make sure that young people and their parents understand that cannabis does not belong behind the wheel under any circumstance. It’s a substance that, like alcohol, causes serious impairment to driving capabilities even though it will soon become legal. Drug-impaired driving is but one aspect to consider when looking at legalizing cannabis, but it is a very critical one.

I would like to thank this committee for allowing us to present our point of view.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

We certainly recognize that we have a quality, worldwide service that's available right now when it comes to medical cannabis in this country. Certainly, with respect to the legislation in Bill C-45, we can see that we can build on that existing service.

What's imperative, however, is that we want to make sure consumers of medical cannabis will continue to have access to the product they need, and we will continue as well to monitor that situation very closely to make sure they always have access to the medication, to the products they use.

I may ask Ms. Bogden if there's anything else she wanted to add to that.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Minister of Justice, who will be responsible for enforcing Bill C-45 on reserve lands and band lands?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I'll just re-emphasize that the campaign has begun. It is focused upon social media to start with, because all the statistics indicate this as by far the most effective mechanism for reaching young people.

The work is ongoing. It will undoubtedly accelerate and be complemented by the work of other organizations, including provincial governments, which in a number of cases have extensive information and educational campaigns in mind with respect both to Bill C-45 and the new regime dealing with cannabis and especially with respect to Bill C-46, which deals with impaired driving. There are some very important private sector organizations, such as MADD or Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Canadian Automobile Association, that have already been very active in putting important messages, including paid advertising, into the public domain.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

We recognize that jurisdictions may be in different places in terms of the work they've done on this. If a jurisdiction, a province, British Columbia, for example, is not ready when we hope that Bill C-45 becomes law, then there is a backstop. The federal government will provide safe distribution from a licensed producer that can be securitized through the mail.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I'll go back to the Minister of Justice. The McLellan task force said:

Canada’s governments, and many other organizations, will need to work quickly to prepare for the implementation of the new system, increasing or developing capacity in many areas relating to production, distribution and retail, quality control and enforcement, and research and surveillance.... Having all elements in place will be necessary for the proper functioning of the regime.

They also recommended that the federal government, “Take a leadership role to ensure that capacity is developed among all levels of government prior to the start of the regulatory regime”.

However, when asked if the federal government has been working with indigenous governments on a nation-to-nation basis to develop that capacity, Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day told this committee:

No, they haven't....

The legislative process, the capacity, and the mutually agreed-upon processes as to how we're going to gel and work together to meet a collective outcome are going to be the challenge. That is simply not happening with this government.

Minister, given the task force's clear warning that intergovernmental co-operation is critical, and given the Prime Minister's repeated statements that his most important relationship is with indigenous people, why has your government ignored first nations' governments in building the capacity for BillC-45 to become law?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

After introducing Bill C-45, Prime Minister Trudeau told a VICE News town hall that:

...our focus is on making sure we’re changing the legislation to fix what’s broken [in] a system that is hurting Canadians…and then we’ll take steps to look at what we can do for those people who have criminal records for something that would no longer be criminal.

However, Kathy Thompson, assistant deputy minister for community safety and countering crime branch in the Department of Public Safety, told this committee that, “There are no plans at this time to introduce an automatic pardon”, as suggested, and there is zero in this bill to deal with pardons.

Minister, can you confirm that your government is considering plans to pardon criminal records for offences that will no longer be offences when the proposed legislation comes into force?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

First, we are proceeding on a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system, targeted specifically to reduce the over-representation of indigenous and marginalized individuals in the criminal justice system.

What we've done with the proposed cannabis act in Bill C-45 is, as I said earlier in my comments, to put a diversity of sanctions within the act from ticketing to the more serious criminal prosecutions that could arise. There is an opportunity to proceed by way of ticketing for many of the offences that you've mentioned, for example, between 30 and 50 grams of possession for an adult. For youth there's the opportunity, when you go through the Youth Criminal Justice Act, to proceed in other manners that law enforcement officers can—