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.

Criminal Code

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I will begin by thanking my colleague for his presentation on Bill C-349.

I am pleased to join this debate on a bill that proposes to amend the Criminal Code to create a scheme to list criminal organizations and to also create a new offence prohibiting the wearing of emblems of listed criminal organizations. The rationale behind these proposals as put forward is to make it easier for the police and prosecutors to investigate and prosecute offences committed by criminal organizations.

We have already heard a number of concerns expressed about this bill. I share those concerns, and accordingly will be encouraging all members to vote against it.

Organized crime is of great concern to all Canadians and all levels of government. As a former federal prosecutor, I take this issue very seriously. Whether it consists of loosely organized street gangs or highly structured motorcycle clubs, organized crime pervades almost every aspect of society. Activities such as the theft and resale of legal commodities, the trafficking of drugs and firearms, terrorism, money laundering, fraud, and human trafficking cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars and also pose great risk to the safety of Canadians.

Not only does organized crime have a direct impact on the Canadian economy, as I said, but the violence used to commit these crimes for the benefit of criminal organizations affects innocent people, decreases public safety, and undermines the fundamental values of our society.

In 2013, Criminal Intelligence Service Canada stated that there were 672 criminal organizations reported in Canada, most of which were located in metropolitan areas, especially in cities where there are ports or a larger economy. CISC also reported that the majority of organized crime groups in Canada are involved in drug trafficking due to the high revenue of Canada's import and export drug market. In this regard, I would just take a moment to note that our government's approach in Bill C-45 aims to deprive criminal organizations and gangs of the very source of revenue they use to continue to profit from the trafficking of illegal drugs.

Canada's black market is currently valued at approximately $77.83 billion, with drug trafficking accounting for approximately 57%, or $44.5 billion, so the figures have some significance.

The structure and operation of organized crime also seem to be changing. Historically, organized crime consisted of complex and cohesive groups, such as outlaw biker gangs and the mafia, and each group tended to be involved in specific criminal activities for long periods of time.

Today, organized crime is more fluid; gangs come together for different purposes and work together to achieve their goals, relying on particular skills to carry out a specific criminal act. Once the criminal act is complete, these individuals may or may not continue to work together.

This point highlights one of the reasons why I do not believe that Bill C-349 is the appropriate solution for addressing certain challenges related to the investigation and prosecution of criminal organizations. Most groups are fluid and, as a result, keeping a current list of those groups would be an ongoing challenge that would take a lot of time and resources, and would probably be useless in most cases.

The Criminal Code already includes solid legislation to fight organized crime, and contains four specific offences. Those offences cover those who support the activities of criminal organizations, those who commit offences for criminal organizations, and those who ask others to commit offences for criminal organizations.

The Criminal Code also contains tougher sentences for offenders linked to organized crime, ensuring that those people are punished more severely. Finally, the Criminal Code contains specific provisions covering organized crime.

Bill C-349 proposes to amend the definition of criminal organization in the Criminal Code to include any criminal organization as prescribed by the Governor in Council.

I know that some commentators have found it frustrating that every time a court makes a finding of act that a group meets the definition of a criminal organization, that this finding carries no weight in a subsequent prosecution involving the same group. However, I believe that the proposal in Bill C-349 to overcome this so-called redundancy is not an effective solution and may actually create more practical problems than it would solve. For example, there is a risk that if a group is a listed entity, law enforcement would decide not to collect evidence as thoroughly as they do presently, relying on the assumption that it is unnecessary.

However, reliance on the list to prove the existence of a criminal organization would almost certainly be challenged during a prosecution for a criminal organization offence, as we have seen in the past. For example, defence counsel could argue that the listed group is not the same group as the one at issue in the prosecution, slight variations in the conspiracies, or improper motives that are being advanced differently from one case to the next. Accordingly, the prosecutor would still require evidence to refute this claim, evidence that may not have been collected.

Alternatively, a defence lawyer might argue that the court cannot rely upon the list because the evidential standard to list criminal organizations—that is, reasonable grounds to believe that the group is involved in organized crime activity—is lower than that required in a criminal trial, which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

These sorts of inevitable challenges would lead to delays and possibly to frustrated prosecutions, which I know no member in the House would like to see.

I am also concerned about the basis upon which a group would be listed. The bill says that the group has to have carried out "organized crime activity", but that phrase is not defined in the bill. Does organized crime activity mean only criminal offences, or does it also include conduct that facilitates the ability of a criminal organization to commit crimes? This is another area that would inevitably be challenged in court and could cause years of delay and confusion.

I also have some questions about the charter viability of the proposals in the bill. It is fundamental that the crown bear the burden of establishing all essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt. I have serious concerns that the listing process may indeed interfere with an individual's right to be presumed innocent under the charter. Relying on such a list would most likely lead to charter challenges, which would further complicate the prosecution instead of simplifying it. This would also add to the length of these trials and further clog up our courts.

In light of the Jordan decision, we should be mindful of any changes that might make our criminal justice system slower and less efficient. It is also worth noting that the listing process itself is a time-consuming undertaking for the machinery of government and that it would require substantial and ongoing resources to attempt to keep the list accurate and up to date.

The proposal to create an offence of wearing an emblem of a listed criminal organization also carries charter risks relating to the accused's right of freedom of expression. Although I think we would all join in saying that we find some of these expressions in their emblems and patches to be highly offensive, potentially putting at risk the outcomes of these trials could create delay. Indeed we have seen some cases already in the province of Saskatchewan, which has struck down proposals similar to the one we see in Bill C-349.

One effective way of combatting organized crime is to prevent these groups from profiting through the black market. In that respect, our government's introduction of Bill C-45, concerning the legalization and strict regulation of cannabis, will have a positive impact on reducing the role of organized crime in the sale of cannabis and will take the illicit profits out of their hands. It will also keep it out of the hands of our children, as my colleagues have pointed out very ably on numerous occasions.

While I recognize the pervasive threat organized crime poses to Canadians, I do not believe the bill would improve the criminal justice system in any practical way and could quite possibly create more challenges than it would solve. For these reasons, the government will not be supporting Bill C-349. I would encourage all members to vote it down.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has provided a great deal of information and education on this issue, and I know that as the former justice minister, he has worked very hard to make sure that we are protecting Canadians.

I always return to the fact that we still have impaired driving from drinking, let alone now moving into drugs. We are only 13 months from Bill C-45 being enacted, and we are going to see drug-impaired Canadians out there. We already know that drunk driving has not ceased just because we have fantastic campaigns like MADD. Now we would add another level of issues to this topic.

I believe that when we are looking at cannabis use in Bill C-46, we have to recognize that it impairs people differently. It may be a person who has smoked it daily for the last 20 years or it may be a young teenager who has smoked it for the first time. We have to recognize that because the legislation in Bill C-45 is not tight enough, there are going to be 16-year-olds who are going to have access to cannabis and we have to understand that there are going to be 16-year-olds on the road with cannabis in their system who have just learned to drive in the first place.

I want to hear from this former minister on Bill C-46. What is his recommendation for the level of cannabis in someone's system? I truly believe it should be zero, and I want to hear from him on that. What are some of his recommendations? We know that our law enforcement agencies are going to have a lot on their hands.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am almost sorry that we cannot go right to the question period.

That said, it is my responsibility to address a number of the concerns that we in the Conservative Party have with respect to Bill C-46. While the Conservative Party has always been in favour of toughening laws to discourage drinking and driving, this legislation has some flaws that need to be remedied prior to its coming into law.

The first quandary I will address is the fact that the Liberals are ignoring their own task force recommendations to implement extensive marijuana and impaired driving education and awareness programs prior to the legalization of marijuana. Rather than choosing to be measured in its approach, the government is selecting to ram this legislation through. Officials from both Washington State and Colorado have stressed the importance of starting educational campaigns as soon as possible, before legalization, yet the government has no concrete plans in place to speak to this.

The Liberals have created a false deadline for political gain, and in doing so have placed the health and safety of Canadians at risk. The agenda of any government should never supersede the well-being and security of its citizens. For example, the Canadian Automobile Association, the CAA, has requested that the Liberal government implement a government-funded education program warning about the dangers of driving while impaired under the influence of cannabis prior to the legalization of the drug. They have also requested that police forces be given adequate funding to learn how to identify and investigate drug-impaired drivers.

The government has imposed a timeline that is unrealistic. Education is imperative. The National Post printed a story on May 17, 2016, in which it cited that in a State Farm survey, 44% of all Canadians who smoke marijuana believed it made them better drivers. As a matter of fact, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the former chief of police of Toronto, stated recently in the chamber that 15% of teens believe that smoking marijuana makes them better drivers. His figures may err on the side of caution, but the government is obviously aware that educating drivers is necessary. Why, then, is it that the government is not implementing the required programs in order to keep Canadians safe on our roadways?

A study commissioned by the CAA and conducted by Earnscliffe Strategy Group found this figure to be higher than 15%, and in fact it is was 26% of all drivers between the ages of 18 and 34 believe that driving while high on marijuana made them better drivers. The figures may vary, but the facts are clear. An increasing number of drivers believe that marijuana enhances their capabilities on the road. Jeff Walker, the spokesperson for the CAA, concurs. He said:

There are a lot of misconceptions out there that marijuana doesn’t affect your driving, or even worse, it makes you a better driver.

He then went on to say:

There need to be significant resources devoted to educating the public in the run-up to, and after, marijuana is legalized.

Why is it that the government is ignoring calls to ensure the safety of all Canadians on our roadways by funding and offering an adequate public education program? It is our responsibility as parliamentarians to combat the fallacy that cannabis use while driving is not a hazard to road safety.

The statistics are clear, but the Liberals are more focused on fulfilling an election promise than protecting Canadians. On the Peace Tower is the inscription, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The Liberals are showing a lack of vision. Again, the Liberals are imposing a deadline in order to fulfill one of their election promises. Rushing such legislation is against all recommendations, including that of the CAA and the Liberals' own task force.

As members know, the Conservative Party has always supported measures that protect Canadians from impaired drivers. Drug-impaired driving is a real concern in Canada. The Department of Justice's own statistics cite a 32% increase in deaths from marijuana-involved traffic accidents in the span of a year.

In Colorado, marijuana-related traffic deaths increased by 154% between 2006 and 2014. This was according to a study done by Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a collaboration of federal, state, and local drug enforcement agencies.

It is wrong that the Liberals should ram this legislation through without consideration for the well-being of our citizens. Douglas Beirness, a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, gave voice to similar concerns when he acknowledged, “We’re getting a picture that people who are using cannabis are dying in greater numbers than ever before.” The government needs to ensure that Canadians understand the risks of impaired driving before moving forward with this legislation. At this point it would seem that the Liberal logic is skewed.

Another consequence to rushing this legislation through is that it does not address the concerns police forces have in respect to detecting drug-impaired drivers. Superintendent Gord Jones of the Toronto Police Service, the co-chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police traffic committee stated, “We’re having our challenges. The most pressing one is that we don’t know what the legislation will look like. It makes it hard to train and prepare.”

The Conservative Party is concerned that our police currently do not have the resources and training they will require to manage the increased threat of impaired driving associated with the legalization of marijuana.

The following excerpt is from the February 4, 2017, edition of the Ottawa Citizen:

Under legislation introduced in 2008 to update impaired driving laws, drivers suspected of drug use have been required to participate in a drug evaluation conducted by a Drug Recognition Expert, or DRE.

These police officers, trained to an international standard, rely on their observations to determine whether a blood or urine test is warranted.

The problem is that there are fewer than 600 trained DRE officers in Canada. An assessment conducted in 2009 estimated that Canada needs between 1,800 and 2,000 and the training system isn’t equipped to pump out trained officers any faster.

It goes on to say:

Cannabis affects tracking, reaction time, visual function, concentration and short-term memory. Signs of cannabis use include poor co-ordination and balance, reduced ability to divide attention, elevated pulse and blood pressure, dilated pupils, the inability to cross the eyes, red eyes and eyelid or body tremors.

The government must address the shortfall in DRE-trained officers if it is to sufficiently test for drug-impaired drivers. I reiterate that the Liberals must have trained DRE officers in place prior to the passage of Bill C-46. They have put the cart before the horse. The order that they are proceeding in is wrong, and the result will be more deaths on Canadian roadways.

Additionally, testing for cannabis is far more bomplicated than testing for alcohol. While the timing of alcohol consumption is readily detected with a breathalyzer, the smelling of cannabis does not necessarily mean it was recently consumed, as drugs absorb at a different rate than alcohol. Chemical traces of cannabis remain in the body longer than alcohol. Whereas breathalyzers are recognized by the courts, there is no such precedent with drug-impaired driving. There will be challenges until there are court decisions.

Let me be clear. When the Conservatives were in government, we supported increased penalties for crimes that put Canadians in danger, such as impaired driving. It is interesting to note that the Liberals opposed legislation that imposed higher maximum penalties. Their approach now simply makes no sense. The Conservatives introduced a private member's bill on impaired driving, as my colleague pointed out, Bill C-226, and the Liberals opposed that legislation.

Bill C-46 raises concerns with regard to law enforcement. Let me be clear. For nine years the Conservatives fought hard to bring in tough impaired driving legislation which the Liberals, as we know, opposed at every opportunity. Now they wish to introduce Bill C-46 to counter their own legislation, Bill C-45, the bill that would legalize the sale and consumption of marijuana. If reasonable suspicion were to remain a criterion, the public would be fully protected, both in terms of their charter rights and freedoms and in regard to their safety on the roads.

Another troubling aspect of Bill C-46 is the fact that it will inevitably cause more court backlogs and delays when individuals would find themselves in the position of having to challenge the legislation.

The Liberals have already created an unnecessary crisis in our legal system by refusing to appoint the required number of judges. It was just pointed out today during question period that they have not. As a result, alleged rapists and murderers are being set free as court cases across the country are being stayed following the Jordan decision. I am guessing that Bill C-46 would further burden the law courts with challenges, worsening the current crisis.

Canadians could lose confidence in their justice system, and unless amendments are made to Bill C-46, disaster will ensure if more and more cases are dismissed. I find it ironic that they would abolish the $200 victim surcharge for murdered victims' families in the name of alleviating financial hardship on the convicted, yet would seek to financially burden citizens who may be forced to challenge this legislation.

The marijuana task force report's advice to the ministers, on page 44, was as follows:

“The Task Force recommends that the federal government invest immediately and work with the provinces and territories to develop a national, comprehensive public education strategy to send a clear message to Canadians that cannabis causes impairment and the best way to avoid driving impaired is to not consume. The strategy should also inform Canadians of the dangers of cannabis-impaired driving, with special emphasis on youth, and the applicable laws and the ability of law enforcement to detect cannabis use.”

The task force went on to recommend that the federal government “invest in research to better link THC levels with impairment and crash risk to support the development of a per se limit; determine whether to establish a per se limit as part of a comprehensive approach to cannabis-impaired driving, acting on findings of the drugs and driving committee; re-examine per se limits, should a reliable correlation between THC levels and impairment be established; support the development of an appropriate roadside drug screening device for detecting THC levels, and invest in these tools; invest in law enforcement capacity, including DRE and SFST training and staffing; and invest in baseline data collection and ongoing surveillance and evaluation in collaboration with provinces and territories.”

The report went on to say, “While it may take time for the necessary research and technology to develop, the task force encourages all governments to implement elements of a comprehensive approach as soon as feasible”.

Thus far, we have not seen any plans to make sure these recommendations are put into effect. Why is that? Could it be that the government simply does not have the money? I find that hard to believe. I think it has the money for everything. The government's own finance department produced a report that says it is not going to be worried about a balanced budget until 2055, so what is the problem with the government spending more money?

The government needs to put the welfare of Canadians first and foremost and before its own political agenda. It is simply wrong that the government would not provide the necessary education, detection tools, deterrent policies, evaluation data, and national coordination between the provinces and territories to inform Canadians on the dangers of drug-impaired driving. This should be part of an overall legislative approach to implementing Bill C-46. The absence of these components, in addition to adding further strain on our already overburdened courts, would make the hasty passage of this bill reckless.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, drug-impaired driving is a concern taken very seriously by the government. I have spoken at length with the minister and the parliamentary secretary about this problem.

Bill C-46 is an important piece of the puzzle to go along with Bill C-45, which is the legalization of cannabis. Bill C-46 does deal with impairment by cannabis, and there will be saliva-based testing.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I look forward to hearing the scientific evidence from legal experts, scientists, and so on as to how this roadside screening will work. I am looking forward to hearing that testimony as soon as this place can get the bill to committee.

Cannabis Act

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time, but since it will be another day, I will provide the name at that time.

I can say with some confidence that the bill has tremendous interest among my constituents in Kootenay—Columbia. I held a telephone town hall on this issue on March 14, and more than 3,300 constituents stayed on the call for the entire hour. That is how much interest there is. Much of what members will hear in this speech reflects their views, and I thank them for that.

It is estimated that growing cannabis and selling it makes up a significant portion of the economy in parts of my riding, and certainly the product is well used, legal or not, by many people, young and old. Those who grow marijuana in the Kootenays are not part of organized crime. They do not see themselves as criminals. Rather, they believe that they are just small-scale farmers producing a herb that has received a bad rap. While I do not think that is completely accurate either, I believe that it is important for post-prohibition licensing to include small producers and co-ops, and not just the large corporations that are currently offering medical marijuana.

That leads me to one of the biggest problems with the bill, the lack of detail. Canadians were promised a piece of historic legislation that would break new ground. What we got was a frame with much of the picture missing. Manufacturing licences will be provided to producers who meet undetermined standards. They will be set by regulations we have not seen yet. It will be legal to sell marijuana, but it is entirely up to the provinces to determine how. Again, no details are provided in the bill.

The age is set at 18, but provinces can change that too. In other words, we might be able to grow cannabis, but we do not know how we would get a licence. We might be able to buy it, but we do not know where, and we might be able to smoke it, but we do not know when. That is a lot of unanswered questions.

Let us look at the issue of minimum age for a moment. Health officials and researchers have been very clear that using marijuana before the age of 25 can be dangerous to brain development. I would like to read briefly from an article by the American Psychological Association. Jodi Gilman, Ph.D., at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Centre for Addiction Medicine, used an MRI to look for brain changes in 18- to 25-year-olds who smoked marijuana at least once per week but were not dependent on the drug. Compared with non-users, the smokers had changes in the shape, volume, and grey matter density of two brain regions associated with addiction. Participants who smoked more often had even more significant differences.

The Canadian Psychological Association recommended to the government panel that the minimum age be 21. The government has chosen to ignore this scientific and medical advice and has lowered the age even further to 18.

Of course, the impact of marijuana used by a pregnant woman could be even more severe. According to information provided to me by the senior policy adviser to the Minister of Justice, heavy cannabis use during pregnancy can lead to lower birth weights. It has also been associated with longer-term development effects in children and adolescents, such as a decrease in memory function, the ability to pay attention, reasoning, and problem-solving skills, and an increase in hyperactive behaviour.

Will marijuana carry labels warning expectant mothers to avoid use of the product, such as we see on tobacco and alcohol? Bill C-45 is silent on this issue.

Yesterday the Canadian Medical Association Journal published a powerful editorial about Bill C-45. The editorial, written by editor-in-chief Dr. Diane Kelsall, calls the minimum age of 18 too young, given the scientific evidence. Dr. Kelsall warns that growing marijuana at home will give young people too easy access. She is also concerned about the lack of national standards for retail sales as well as the limits on the potency of various strains. Dr. Kelso wrote:

The government appears to be hastening to deliver on a campaign promise without being careful enough about the health impacts of policy. It is not good enough to say that provinces and territories can set more stringent rules if they wish. If Parliament truly cares about the public health and safety of Canadians, especially our youth, this bill will not pass.

As I said earlier, last March I held a town hall in my riding to hear from constituents about their thoughts on marijuana legalization. Their opinions were widespread, naturally, and many came with questions. I heard from many people who thought legalization was a good idea. I heard from others who oppose it. I heard from producers who said they did not want to be shut out of the action, and retailers said the same.

Deb Kozak, mayor of Nelson, B.C., was one of my guest panellists. She said she wanted to see a framework that would help her municipality develop appropriate zoning and bylaws for marijuana retailers. Sadly, so far the bill is lacking on that front too, downloading that responsibility to the provinces.

The money that comes from the legal sale of marijuana is another area not covered in the proposed legislation. Many constituents want that taxation aspect to be dedicated specifically to deterring the use of marijuana and other drugs and to reducing and treating the health impacts of using marijuana. They do not want the revenue from legalizing it going to general revenue.

One question I was asked was about crossing into the United States. Will legalizing marijuana in Canada make border crossings more difficult? I did not know, so I wrote the Minister of Justice and asked. Here is what the minister's office responded:

Travellers should remain aware that while some states have legalized recreational cannabis, cannabis remains a controlled substance at the federal level in the United States. Travellers seeking entry into the U.S. may be inadmissible if they admit to having consumed cannabis in Canada or disclose to U.S. authorities plans to purchase or consume cannabis while in the U.S.

Let us say that again: travellers seeking to enter the U.S. may be inadmissible if they admit to having consumed cannabis in Canada.

Canadians doing something that will be legal in Canada may be barred, as a result, from entering into the United States. That is an issue that the government needs to deal with.

Perhaps we should retaliate. It is illegal to consume alcohol under the age of 21 in the United States, so perhaps we should ban anyone from entering Canada if they admit to having had a beer at age 20.

It is imperative that the government work with U.S. authorities to acknowledge our sovereignty and the ability to make laws that are different from theirs and to work out what is going to happen along the border.

Finally, I would like to repeat what many of my NDP colleagues have said. The biggest missing piece of Bill C-45 is the need to provide full pardons to any Canadians convicted of possession of small amounts of marijuana in the past.

Last December, the Governor of Vermont, Peter Shumlin, pardoned 192 individuals who were convicted of possession. He said, “My hope was to help as many individuals as I could overcome that stigma and the very real struggles that too often go along with [being convicted of marijuana].”

I appreciate the government's interest in ending the failed war on drugs and that the prohibition on cannabis, which has harmed more people than it has helped, is finally coming to an end. I hope that the government will get it right.

There is work to be done. This law is not finished yet. There are a lot of holes in it, so while the NDP will support Bill C-45 on second reading, I encourage the government to listen to members of this House and take the opportunity to correct the many deficiencies of the bill when it goes to committee.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-45, on which I worked very hard. This bill will allow the Liberal government to legalize marijuana; for those who might not know, the substance has been illegal in Canada for 94 years. To top it off, the government hopes to accomplish all this in under a year.

That is a very tight timeline for a subject as complex as this, especially when we take the time to look at what other countries have done. Why the rush? One has to wonder, given that the government keeps repeating over and over again and shouting from the rooftops that it has two main objectives, which are to restrict the activities of organized crime, perhaps even to wipe it out entirely, and to keep the substance out of the hands of children.

I will speak to a few different points. First, organized crime will not back off. Furthermore, young people will have even greater access to marijuana, there will be an increase in impaired driving, and workplace safety, which is nowhere to be found in this bill, will take a turn for the worse, endangering workers. Many business leaders are quite concerned about this. Housing-related problems will rise too. We will be faced with serious problems, and yet no one is talking about it. Among other things, there will be an increase in hospitalization rates and in calls to poison control centres, while ethical problems will grow.

Conservatives are not the ones saying all this, and I am certainly not pulling these facts out of my hat; these are the conclusions of studies done by experts who are not financed by pro-marijuana lobbies. These are the facts. These studies were conducted by experts and health professionals, and the results were presented by actual scientists. I would also add that there are real examples of places where governments legalized marijuana. I will go through them all one by one.

First, with regard to organized crime and according to my own research, no marijuana legislation will succeed in wiping out organized crime. In Uruguay and in some of the U.S. states that have legalized marijuana, black markets have only grown.

I will now quote someone who is not a Conservative MP or a mean old Conservative, as the Liberals like to put it.

Despite having legalized recreational marijuana use, Colorado has seen a rise in black market activity. The state is the second largest producer of illegal marijuana after California.

Who said this? The chief of the Denver Police Department.

Criminals are still active on the black market. We have a whole range of cartels active in Colorado, and illegal activity has not dropped one bit.

Who said this, now? The Colorado Attorney General.

The decriminalization of cannabis use has not eliminated organized crime. It has merely adapted and managed to gain a foothold in coffee shops, while retaining control over cannabis production.

Who said that? A criminologist analyzing the situation in Uruguay. Again, this person has is a non-partisan opinion.

Let us now talk about protecting children. I think it is completely inconsistent for the Prime Minister to want to limit access to cannabis for young people while allowing people to grow up to four plants in their own house or apartment.

Even worse, he makes it legal for kids under 18 who are not even supposed to be allowed to use marijuana to have five grams in their pockets. It is illegal, but who cares, kids can have five grams. It boggles the mind.

This government claims to make science-based decisions, but what does the science say? It says that marijuana is dangerous for young people under 25. What is the government's response? It says that it does not matter and that the legal age will be 18. If they had the courage, the Liberals would stop quoting scientists and stop trying to sell this nonsense to Canadians.

I have a few more quotes. I did not make them up, but they come from surprising sources.

Young people are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of marijuana because adolescence is a critical time for brain development.

I found that quote on Health Canada's website. It is from the government's own public servants, who are neutral and have nothing to do with the Conservative Party.

Here is another quote. In Colorado, the number of patients admitted to hospitals after the legalization of marijuana increased dramatically. It almost tripled, from 803 diagnostics per 100,000 people from 2001 to 2009 before legalization to 2,142 diagnostics per 100,000 people after legalization.

That is from a Colorado Public Safety report.

Here is another good example. Calls regarding overdoses made to poison control centres rose by 108% in Colorado and by 68% in Washington State since 2012.

These numbers are from the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center. Would anyone say that these are not credible sources?

The safety of our roads and drug-impaired driving is another major cause of concern in my view. It is already a terrible problem. There are almost as many accidents caused by drug-impaired driving than by alcohol-impaired driving, and the numbers will increase. The facts are clear.

In Washington State, after legalization, fatal accidents caused by impaired driving doubled. In Colorado, they tripled.

Here are a few more quotes:

CAA-Québec members are worried by marijuana becoming legal in Canada. [We could do the same survey in other provinces and I am convinced the results would be the same.] Some 73% of respondents to a survey done by the organization expressed concerns that this measure proposed by the [Liberal] government would negatively impact road and highway safety.

Here is another one, from a surprising source: “The number of car accidents in Colorado increased because of marijuana usage.” Kevin Sabet, a former advisor to Barack Obama on drug policy, is the author of that quote.

“Close to half of Canadians who drive while under the influence of cannabis think that they are not a danger on the road.”

That is over 50%. In his budget, the government is setting aside $1.9 million for awareness campaigns in the entire country, knowing full well that legalization will occur within a year. That is absolutely ridiculous. Half of marijuana users currently consider that they are not dangerous.

Let us now turn to workplace safety. Many Canadian business leaders are concerned that the legalization of marijuana could lead to workplace safety problems. Many business owners and experts spoke to this in recent months.

“'It's so dangerous.' With cannabis becoming legal, he feels that the problem could get worse and he doesn't feel prepared.” This is a quote from Alain Raymond, owner of a roofing company.

“We know that cannabis can have an impact on concentration and reflexes. We also know that cannabis can be detected 15 to 30 days after use. How about an employee who uses marijuana on the weekend but doesn't want his or her employer to know? What does that person do?” That is from Hugo Morissette, a human resources consultant.

Judging by the Colorado experience, these concerns are justified. The number of employees affected by marijuana has risen dramatically in Colorado, from 2.7% in 2011 to 7.5% in 2015, after legalization. The numbers have tripled. It is not insignificant.

The CEO of GE Johnson even said that it was so difficult to find employees that could pass a mouth swab test for marijuana, that he had to hire people from outside the state.

In short, considering the obligations of every employer in Quebec and in every other province, legalizing the recreational use of marijuana will expose employers and employees to many legal and other associated risks, such as the risk of more workplace accidents, increased employee absenteeism, and lower employee productivity. Employees would also be at risk of developing a marijuana addiction, which would in turn require that employers provide proper accommodation. Lastly, there would be a risk of increased health care cost-related claims. That is yet another aspect of the marijuana legalization issue that is far from settled, and the bill does nothing to settle it.

I will now return to the issue I spoke of early on in my speech, that of rental properties. Not a single word on this can be found in the bill. Marijuana legalization complicates the management of rental properties. Landlords fear that growing these plants indoors, up to four per housing unit, will cause damage to the units. What is more, dangerous modifications to existing electrical systems will lead to an increased risk of fire and accidents. Those hoping for an earlier harvest will undoubtedly attempt to tinker with their grid.

I will move a bit more quickly through the other parts, as I do not have many people to persuade. Marijuana's effects on health are particularly troubling to me. Medical experts agree that marijuana is a dangerous drug for children and teenagers; I would add that it is dangerous for all vulnerable persons. Whether for or against legalization, everyone can agree on that.

The Liberals are reluctant to admit that cannabis consumption has the same effect on teenagers, unlike alcohol, and that is to cause permanent damage to the brain. The Canadian Medical Association has already warned the government that occasional cannabis use can have severe psychological repercussions on the brain's development, even up to age 25.

The Canadian Medical Association recommends a legal minimum age, and it would even agree to drop that number down to 21, if that would help the government make a wise decision. What was this irresponsible government's response? Eighteen years. The Liberals have the nerve to say they base their decisions on science and on experts, but the truth of the matter is that they base their decisions on their friends who will benefit from the legalization of marijuana. I will return to this a bit later.

Today, Colorado ranks first in cannabis consumption. Before legalization, and for ten consecutive years, it took 14th place. How can the Liberals assure parents that legal marijuana will stay far, far away from the children? On that, the Liberals are radio silent and offer no assurances.

How can the Liberals claim that legalizing marijuana and allowing the personal cultivation of up to four plants per housing unit will lead to limiting children's access to marijuana? Once again, the Liberals are radio silent. They are keeping mum on the real issues, which raises some serious questions as to the government's true intentions.

I am now getting to the really juicy part of my speech. I got a call from a friend of mine last week. He is always on top of the news cycle. He asked me to explain to him why, despite all the warnings, the Liberal government had decided to go forward with its legislation. I answered that there definitely had to be a reason. The reason is simple: the government has friends who will benefit from this move. It is a lucrative business for marijuana production company CEOs. This week, we learned that a third of these companies have at least one major Liberal Party donor on their board of directors. Those are the facts. These companies are run by people close to the Liberal Party. I will name a few. I will add that I did not even have to dig too deep, because the story is getting quite a bit of media coverage these days.

Here is one of the quotes:

The co-founder of The Hydropothecary, the only licensed producer of medical marijuana in Quebec, Adam Miron, was the national director of the Liberal Party of Canada and the national director of the Young Liberals of Canada.

That is something else, is it not? The only licensed producer in Quebec is part of the Liberal Party of Canada. Here is another quote:

At Aurora Cannabis, which is trying to open a plant on Hymus Boulevard in west Montreal, Chuck Rifici, who was on the board of directors, was the chief financial officer of the Liberal Party of Canada until last summer.

Last summer is not very long ago. I think that people know him, but we do not have the right to say these things about him outside the House because he files lawsuits against us if we name him. At least here I can say these things. Here is another quote:

Mr. Rifici was working for the Liberal Party of Canada when he co-founded Tweed, which became the largest producer of medical marijuana in the country, with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.

We need not look very far to see why the government is in such a rush to legalize marijuana. All of the research and statistics show that marijuana is dangerous for children and that we do not have enough information. However, no measures have been put in place to ensure that children will be protected against this product. There is also no evidence to show that there will be fewer motor vehicle accidents. Our police officers do not even have the proper equipment.

I sponsored Senator Claude Carignan's bill in the House, and it is already pretty far along in the process, but the government plans to vote against it, even though it could speed up the process if for no other reason than to ensure that our police officers are properly equipped and to give them the training they need so that they are able to actually take action on July 1 if the government goes forward with this.

Since a Conservative senator was the one who introduced the bill, the government decided not to support it. Instead, it decided to come up with another bill to draw things out, even though Senator Carignan's bill had the unanimous support of the Senate, including that of independent Liberal senators, or maybe they are not independent. We no longer know. The reality is that we are not going to be ready.

I will return to the topic at hand. It is also about ethics. President Barack Obama's former advisor on drug policies, Kevin Sabet, says that they were fooled. He believes that the legalization of marijuana in Alaska, Oregon, Colorado and the State of Washington is all about money and benefits private equity firms, and that the decision had nothing to do with public health. He says that there is a huge industry in Colorado, which is like the tobacco industry and has its own lobbyists.

That is the reality. It has nothing to do with good intentions that go over well when the Liberals talk to Canadians. The reality is that what they are saying is false and that there is a lobby that is applying pressure. Every U.S. state where marijuana was legalized or is in the process of being legalized held a referendum. Moreover, in the states where marijuana was legalized, it was by a narrow margin of 50.5%, 51%, or 52% of the vote. Who provided the information? It was always the big marijuana lobby. That is the reality.

What is happening in Canada is surprising. I believe I spoke about this earlier. I named names, and I am not going to return to that. However, I have some interesting information about the person who will certainly ask me a question, and that is the parliamentary secretary responsible for the legalization of marijuana. He is being investigated by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner with respect to a fundraiser attended by Liberal donors who are lobbying for the legalization of marijuana. He will ask me a question, and I will enjoy answering him.

One person at the fundraising cocktail party attended by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, who was the special guest, and also responsible for the legalization of marijuana, pointed out that there were many other people from the cannabis industry that were trying to get his attention. I think we are starting to get the picture.

A recent article in La Presse revealed that former Liberal politicians and former senior Liberal Party officials sit on the boards of directors of the largest cannabis producers in the country and make donations to the Liberal Party. It could not be any clearer. Pretending that the government is presenting a bill that will protect our kids and keep our roads safe is disingenuous. It is not true.

If the Prime Minister used his notoriety to promote healthy life choices, it would be much more useful and a lot less young people and other individuals would be smoking marijuana.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-45 concerning the legalization of marijuana.

First, I will say to all my colleagues that I an not an expert, a doctor, a police officer, or a scientist. My post-secondary studies do not make me more qualified than others to talk about drug use. Tonight, I am speaking as a father of three children on the marijuana legalization bill.

This evening, I heard the government use so many platitudes and different talking points that say the same thing, that it makes me think that the government wants to legalize marijuana in order to keep an election promise made to a segment of the electorate in order to win the election. It is another of the many promises made by the Liberals to get votes. Today, they are in a rush to keep this promise, but they are forgetting one key thing: if they legalize this drug, people, youth, and families will suffer.

Some people are really going to suffer as a result of this decision. It is a disgrace to this House and a disgrace to all members to simply repeat the talking points provided by Health Canada, or should I say the office of the Minister of Health. Indeed, it was not Health Canada that provided these talking points, I am sure. The Liberal members keep repeating them ad nauseam to try to convince themselves that legalizing marijuana is good for Canadian society.

I thank my colleague from Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis for comparing this situation with the Colorado experience. I heard the member who spoke right before me questioning my colleague's sources. Colorado teachers have painted a picture of the consequences and collateral damage that legalizing marijuana has had on Colorado. There have been seven consequences. Unfortunately, my colleague did not have time to outline all seven elements during his speech, but since I have some time, I will go over them. I will then move on to the heart of matter.

First of all, in 25% to 40% of all cases of impaired driving, marijuana was involved.

Second, in 2012, 10.4% of Colorado youth aged 12 to 17 were considered current marijuana users compared to 7.5% nationally. Colorado is now ranked fourth in the nation with 39% more users than the national average. That is what happened.

Third, marijuana-related expulsions and suspensions increased by 32% between 2008-09 and 2012-13.

Fourth, in 2012, 26.81% of college-age students were considered current marijuana users compared to 18.8% nationally. This put Colorado third in the nation at 42% higher than the national average.

Fifth, in 2013, 48.4% of Denver adult arrestees tested positive for marijuana, which is a 16% increase from 2008.

Sixth, from 2011 to 2012, there was a 57% increase in emergency room visits by marijuana users.

Seventh, hospitalizations related to marijuana have gone up by 82% in Colorado since 2008.

We want to make comparisons and tell it like it is. I thank my colleague from Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis for giving me this information, which I did not have.

They say they have solved the problems and found solutions, but the fact is that the solutions ended up causing a lot more problems and not meeting the people's expectations. The Colorado situation is taking a heavy toll on young people and families.

My concerns have not changed since the bill was introduced. The government is saying two things. First, it wants to take drug profits away from organized crime, and second, it wants to make it harder for young people to get marijuana.

It makes no sense to give these two reasons when legalizing, and I would instead say normalizing, the use of marijuana in Canada.

Let us first talk about prohibition because that is often the example given. We are often told about the prohibition of alcohol. Profits from the sale of alcohol were taken out of the hands of organized crime. Today, it is a legal and controlled market. On several occasions in recent weeks, I had the opportunity to meet with grade 11 students in my riding. I asked them questions. I sometimes asked their teachers if they would leave the class because I wanted honest answers. I asked how many of them had consumed alcohol. All students raised their hands. In Quebec, grade 11 students are 15 and 16 years old. As far as I know, across Canada people under the age of 18 are prohibited from consuming alcohol. It is a controlled product that is managed by crown corporations and is closely monitored. In addition, everyone knows that consuming alcohol under 18 is illegal. However, all the 16-year-olds I met had consumed alcohol.

The big news is that the Liberals claim that by treating marijuana like alcohol, young people will use it less. What is wrong with this picture? What will happen instead? People will simply trivialize the use of marijuana. It will no longer be a criminal offence. There will be no penalties. Some young person who was hesitating for fear of being caught will have his first joint. I realize that this first experiment might be the last for many young people. It might be just an occasional thing. However, what might happen to kids who have more problems, those who are having difficulties, those who are having a hard time at home and who might try this and feel good for the first time in their lives? They will not use marijuana just one, two, or three times. They will continue to use it. As a father, this worries me. This is what we need to think about. We have to stop thinking about numbers and everything that is going to happen. This is the reality, because this is what is happening on the ground. This is what young people tell us when we talk to them.

I asked these young people another question. I asked them how many of them had ever tried marijuana, how many had tried a joint, and how many had tried it just once. About a third of them, 30%, 35%, or 40%, depending on the class, raised their hands in front of their teacher or even their father. It seemed cool. It is odd, because it is not all that cool, since only a third raised their hands. When I asked them if they supported the legalization of marijuana, even those who had tried it did not all raise their hands. A smaller number support the legalization of marijuana. Among the youth aged 16 and under that I met at high school, between 60% and 75% did not support the legalization of marijuana.

When I talk to them, they tell me that they are opposed to the legalization of cannabis because they have seen what marijuana did to their friend. He started using marijuana, quit school, and no longer hangs around with them. He was a good student and they had fun together, but he withdrew from the group. He became a whole different person. He started hanging around with different people and is now, unfortunately, no longer part of their group. That is what young people are telling me. I am not talking about statistics, studies, or bogus consultations to justify an election promise. I am talking about what young people are saying about this issue.

The second argument really makes me laugh. The Liberals are saying that they want to divert the profits from organized crime. Let us come back to the issue of alcohol. In the old days, alcohol was illegal and governments had the bright idea to take back control of alcohol in order to hinder organized crime. The result is that, today, organized crime no longer exists.

The silence speaks volumes. Does organized crime still exist? Did organized crime figure out a way to continue to make money? Yes. It found drugs, including marijuana. Organized crime finds a way. If we take away its way of making money, it will simply find other things to sell, which we think is even more worrisome.

Over the past weeks, months, and years, organized crime has been shifting its focus to chemical drugs, which cause people to completely lose control and create instant addiction, unlike marijuana. Criminals will make sure that young people who buy marijuana legally try these other kinds of drugs.

Anyone who believes that organized crime will cease to exist once marijuana is legal is dreaming in colour. This is a problem because these people will never go away unless and until we can tackle who they are and what they have. These are inherently evil people bent on making money, and they need to be locked up, hunted down, caught in the act, and punished. Legalizing the bad things they do will not make those things any better. I cannot accept that.

The worst part is that this bill tells us how marijuana legalization is going to work. It even says that it will be up to the provinces to decide what to do with 12- to 18-year-olds caught with marijuana. The federal government thinks all it needs to do is legalize marijuana. It could not care less what happens to young people. That is what Bill C-45 will do. It will allow young people to possess marijuana. The government says that is all fine and legal. Again, what kind of message is that sending to young people?

Marijuana will be legal for 18-year-olds even though health experts all agree that it is a bad idea. I will have more to say later about the marijuana plants that everyone will be allowed to grow at home. I have family members who died of cancer because they smoked. We hear about cancer caused by second-hand smoke all the time.

What will happen to kids who are only four, five, or six years old whose parents use marijuana? What will happen to landlords whose tenants decide to smoke marijuana in their apartment since it is legal? Anyone who has ever entered an apartment building on the same floor as someone smoking marijuana knows that it smells awful.

You have no choice but to walk through the smoke. It is a bit like what happens on the Hill on April 20. Everyone knows what it is. Imagine the same thing, then, in a small apartment with no ventilation. It is incredible. It is already happening now, but it will be even worse once it becomes legal. That is what worries me.

This bill contains absolutely nothing to help families, young people and parents, who will have to face the problems associated with their kids using cannabis. What is the government going to do to support them? What is it going to do to discourage young people from smoking marijuana? This bill sends a clear message. The government can say that packaging must not be appealing, and indeed, the packaging will not be pretty, but rather plain black with simply the contents and quantity, but pot is still pot, whether it is packaged nicely or not.

What is being done to discourage young people from trying it for the first time? This bill contains absolutely nothing in the area of prevention, nothing to help families who might be struggling with a child who has tried marijuana for the first time or who might have become addicted to pills or chemicals. There is absolutely nothing in the bill.

Then the government will ask us to give it our support and our trust. This is about our young people's lives. We are not here to debate something immaterial that will never happen in our lifetime. This is about my son's life, my daughter's life, and the lives of each and every one of our children. It is all too convenient to simply repeat the talking points provided by the cabinet about legalizing marijuana and how easy that is going to be.

I say “talking points” because the Liberals all repeat the same thing. No one else has said what I am saying now, because, quite frankly, I am speaking from the heart. Have I been reading any notes since I stood up? No, because I am speaking from the heart and I wanted to share this moment with my colleagues, because it is very important. I do not want to convince them to renege on their promise. I simply want them to put that promise aside and think for two seconds about the consequences for our youth. I want them to ask themselves if it is really worth going as far as legalizing marijuana to keep an election promise, considering the major negative impacts it will have on every young Canadian.

My office intern prepared plenty of arguments for me. A Radio-Canada survey revealed that Canadians, especially Quebeckers, are opposed to the legalization of marijuana. I have here with me several reports from the World Health Organization showing that marijuana usage has many negative repercussions on the health of young people, teenagers, parents, and adults.

Another study talks about the effects of secondary smoke on unborn babies still in their mother's womb. There are statistics. I could have spent the entirety of my speech spouting numbers that show how dangerous this is, but I chose to speak from the heart instead of doing what the Liberals do and quote studies to try to prove that maybe it is not so bad. This issue concerns me directly because I have children. It concerns directly each and every member of this House who has children. All members should be extremely concerned.

I do not understand how members opposite can accept that the government legalize marijuana without implementing any prevention measure worth mentioning. The money that was announced is ridiculous. No supports for parents who will be struggling with this issue are being proposed. As far as prevention goes, what will we tell our youth? Maybe it is legal, but it is not ethical, and it is not good for them or for their future.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise and speak in support of Bill C-45, an act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts.

At its core, Bill C-45 would allow individuals above the minimum age of 18 to purchase cannabis from a licensed retailer and possess a maximum of 30 grams. This legislation would also allow for home cultivation with up to four plants per residence and would ensure that access to cannabis for medical purposes would be maintained.

The bill has three specific objectives. It would create a legal and regulated market for cannabis to take profits out of the hands of criminals and organized crime. It would protect public health through strict product requirements for safety and quality. It would impose strict serious criminal penalties for those who would provide cannabis to young people.

When marijuana was criminalized in 1923 under the act to prohibit the improper use of opium and other drugs, the reasons that possession, manufacturing, or purchase of cannabis should be illegal were hardly debated. As parliamentarians, it is our obligation to debate to the best of our ability the critical issues facing Canadians in this important institution and to create the laws that protect them and their inalienable rights. Today, we can have the debate that never occurred in 1923.

The prohibition on cannabis has failed. It victimizes ordinary Canadians and it emboldens criminal elements in our society. The current prohibition on cannabis disproportionately targets minority groups in Canada and has altered the lives of individuals who received a criminal conviction for carrying a small amount of marijuana, including lost employment opportunities, immigration issues, social stigma of being branded a criminal, and imprisonment. It is worse than the problem it was designed to protect us from.

Our government acknowledges that the current prohibition on cannabis does not work, and now is the time to take an evidence-based approach.

As an emergency room physician, I have seen many tragic things. This includes the effects of prohibition on Canadians. The effects that I have witnessed range from organized criminals targeting citizens to instill fear in a community to the murdering of competitors to protect their profits to the killing of innocent bystanders. This is the impact of prohibition that I know and I have seen.

Just as an aside, during my time in the emergency room, I have resuscitated patients who have overdosed on opioids, cocaine, and alcohol. However, never have I had to resuscitate anyone who was only under the influence of marijuana.

The only true beneficiaries of prohibition are the criminals who profit from it. Much like the prohibition on alcohol in America in the 1920s, organized criminals continue to see a lucrative opportunity in today's prohibition. By legalizing and regulating cannabis, we can take revenue away from those who terrorize communities and take loved ones away from their families.

I understand that many people have concerns about this legislation and our youth. Everyone in the House, me included, is concerned about young Canadians using cannabis. However, right now it is easier for children to acquire marijuana than it is for them to acquire tobacco or alcohol, with our youth having some of the highest rates of cannabis use in the world. Drug dealers do not ask to see identification or verify someone's age. When we regulate a product like we do for cigarettes and alcohol, we can restrict its usage to persons above a certain age and ensure there are consequences for those who provide it to them.

The legislation would create two new criminal convictions: giving or selling cannabis to youth and using youth to commit a cannabis-related offence. This legislation would do three things to protect children. It would create a minimum age of 18 years for the purchase of cannabis although the provinces and territories have the right to increase this age. It would provide for public education and awareness campaigns of the dangers associated with cannabis. It would require childproof packaging and warning labels.

The bill would also prohibit product and packaging that would be appealing to youth, selling cannabis through self-service displays or vending machines, and promoting cannabis except in narrow circumstances where the promotion could not be seen by a young person.

At this moment, there is no product safety in the recreational cannabis market. Cannabis sold by organized criminals could be laced with harmful pesticides or herbicides or other dangerous drugs. I am keenly aware of this because I have treated patients who smoked cannabis but were not aware that it contained something else.

The legislation would protect consumers of cannabis by implementing industry-wide rules and standards on basic things, such as sanitary production requirements, a prohibition on the use of unauthorized pesticides, product testing for THC levels and the presence of contaminants, and restrictions on the use of ingredients and additives. These are minor standards that we hold so many companies and producers of innocuous items accountable for, and for too long there was a product used by many Canadians who were not aware if the product used pesticides, contaminants, or was laced with a dangerous substance. Essentially, consumers had to take organized criminals on their word that what they were consuming was not dangerous.

Our government will be investing additional resources to ensure there is appropriate capacity within Health Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to license, inspect, and enforce all aspects of the proposed legislation.

One of the concerns that has been brought up to me by my constituents is persons who are under the influence of cannabis and operating motor vehicles, and their concerns are completely valid. Evidence shows that cannabis impairs an individual's ability to drive.

Impaired driving is the leading criminal cause of death and injury in Canada and rates of drug-impaired driving are increasing. In 2015, there were more than 72,000 impaired driving incidents reported by the police, including almost 3,000 drug-impaired driving incidents. That is why our government also introduced Bill C-46 at the same time it introduced Bill C-45.

Bill C-46 proposes a significant modernization of the impaired driving provisions in the Criminal Code and is designed to protect the health and safety of Canadians by creating new and stronger laws to deter and severely punish impaired driving. The legislation also provides law enforcement with the tools and resources it needs to improve detection and prosecution of impaired driving.

Bill C-46 proposes to strength law enforcement's ability to detect drug-impaired drivers by authorizing the use of roadside oral fluid screening devices. Canadian police forces have tested devices designed to detect cannabis, as well as other drugs, in a driver's saliva. Police have been asking for these resources, and we will deliver.

There have been concerns that this legislation will lead to widespread cannabis use. In fact, there is already widespread cannabis use in Canada and rates of usage among youth and adults are higher than other jurisdictions that have legalized marijuana. Our society is dealing with a myriad of problems due to cannabis, but most of them are in fact caused by its prohibition.

This legislation will take revenue away from organized criminals, implement, for the first time in Canada, safety standards, actually solve many of the problems, and make it harder for our youth to acquire marijuana. The legislation will make Canada a safer place for all.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley.

First of all, I want to say how proud I am to be part of a government that has the courage, the audacity, and most importantly the insight to see things as they really are. What is the reality in Canada right now? The reality is that the prohibition of cannabis is not working. According to Statistics Canada, even though cannabis is illegal, 12% of Canadians have used it over the past year. A more recent CBC survey showed that the real number was 17%.

This means that, unfortunately, 17% of Canadians are unwillingly contributing to a criminal-run market that generates staggering profits for organized crime year after year. We are talking an estimated $7 billion per year. The current system also forces five million otherwise law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying Canadians to do business with criminals, thereby increasing their risk of exposure to violence and other drugs. Even possession of a small amount of cannabis can saddle them with a criminal record for life.

We are jeopardizing Canadians' health by forcing them to do business with criminals who do not care about the quality and safety of what they sell. Dealers do not care about what they sell, nor do they care about whom they sell it to. Who buys marijuana from criminals? Do dealers make sure their customers are not minors? The way things stand in Canada, it is easier for minors to get marijuana than it is for them to get alcohol or cigarettes, and the prevalence of marijuana consumption is higher among underage and young Canadians than anywhere else in the OECD.

This is a problem because nobody here wants cannabis to be a part of everyday life. We know how it can affect the developing brain, and we need to take a different approach precisely because it is not a harmless substance. The current approach is truly disastrous for our young people.

Everything I just described was the result of prohibition. To those who defend the status quo, who wrap themselves in virtue on the other side of the House by sticking their heads so far down in the sand that they do not see reality for what it is, to them I ask what they would propose.

What is it that they are proposing? Is it more of the same, the same failure for our kids, the same failure for our communities, the same failure for Canadians?

If we keep doing what we have always done, we will keep getting what we have always gotten. The current approach is a failure. It needs to be changed. It needs to be changed responsibly. This is what we told Canadians, and this is precisely what we are doing.

The proposed cannabis act that we are debating tonight would create a legal framework to allow for the establishment of a regulated industry that provides controlled access to cannabis for adult Canadians. It would establish a system that over time would displace the illicit market for cannabis and keep profits out of the hands of organized crime. It would better protect youth by establishing a strict set of controls designed to restrict their access to cannabis.

The new system will also help protect the health of adult Canadians by ensuring that the cannabis available on the legal market is produced in a controlled environment, correctly labelled, and free of any additives or dangerous chemical products.

This framework will also ease the burden on our judicial system, since we will no longer be cracking down on Canadians for the possession of a small quantity of cannabis. Those are the objectives of Bill C-45, which is before the House this evening.

I would like to highlight some of specific provisions in the proposed cannabis act, and describe how these parts of the bill would achieve these objectives. Let me begin with the parameters for legal access to cannabis so that the current illegal market is diminished and ultimately displaced.

Our government has made it clear that it is taking a public health approach to cannabis legalization and regulation, and that the legal production, distribution, and sale of the substance will be subject to strict regulatory controls and standards. This means that any business seeking to serve as a commercial producer or seller of cannabis will need to first have a licence or other type of government authorization.

Under this approach, governments, whether they be provincial or federal, would have the ability to establish licensing requirements for businesses in order to keep criminals out and to allow the participation of legitimate businesses. These requirements are also designed to make sure that legally produced cannabis is not diverted to the illegal market, and that, conversely, illegally produced cannabis does not end up on store shelves.

The government and I, mostly definitely, are confident that Bill C-45 sets the conditions for a legal and appropriately regulated cannabis industry to emerge across Canada that will displace the current illegal market. Our government is also confident that the cannabis available through the regulated supply chain will be safer than the cannabis that is available on the streets today.

This brings me to the objective I outlined earlier, namely, to better protect the health of Canadian adults who decide to use cannabis. Bill C-45 proposes to implement a comprehensive regulatory framework that would establish national product quality and safety standards, as well as packaging and labelling standards. This framework will better protect the health of Canadians. This evening I heard a member across the way talking about ticketing, but that would never happen and organized crime would still be in the equation. What we want to do is remove organized crime from the equation.

Bill C-45 also includes other provisions to better protect young people, including a specific prohibition, as defined under criminal law, from selling or providing cannabis in any form to anyone under the age of 18. Anyone found guilty of selling cannabis to a youth could face up to 14 years in prison.

To further support our government's objective of protecting youth, Bill C-45 would make it illegal to sell products that appeal specifically to youth. Bill C-45 would also enact a comprehensive suite of advertising restrictions designed to protect youth from promotions and other messaging that could encourage them to use cannabis. These provisions, modelled on similar rules that have been used successfully to protect youth from inducements to use tobacco, would prohibit any advertising that could make cannabis appealing to a young person.

Taken together, these provisions in Bill C-45 would establish a system that would provide adult Canadians with access to legal cannabis through a controlled market, would decrease the demand for cannabis from the illicit market, and diminish the role played by organized crime. At the same time, the bill would introduce rigorous controls to ensure that cannabis is not sold or marketed to youth, and that legal cannabis is produced and sold in accordance with appropriate regulatory standards.

As I mentioned, Bill C-45 also sets out to minimize the repercussions and social harms associated with criminalizing the possession of small quantities of cannabis. For anyone who ends up with a criminal record for possession of a small quantity of cannabis, those repercussions may include travel restrictions or diminished job prospects. Criminalization also affects the legal system because it overburdens our police resources and our criminal justice system.

Bill C-45 fixes those problems by scrapping the strict prohibition on possession of a small quantity of cannabis and authorizing adult Canadians to possess up to 30 grams of dried cannabis in public.

For youth, Bill C-45 would also seek to avoid the negative lifelong consequences of possessing very small amounts of cannabis. Bill C-45 proposes that youth under 18 years of age would not be subject to criminal prosecution for possession of up to five grams of cannabis. Our government is also committed to working with the provinces and territories to encourage the creation of non-criminal provincial offences that would prohibit youth from possessing any amount of cannabis. This approach would provide police with the authority to seize any amount of cannabis found in the possession of a young person while not rendering them liable to criminal sanctions, which I think any sensible person would agree to.

Alongside this sea change, another key goal for our government is to ensure that Canadians who need medical marijuana can continue to obtain it.

To conclude, I will say that I am sure about one thing. The current policy, prohibition, is a failure. We need to change how we deal with cannabis, and our very strict regulatory framework for cannabis legalization will have some very positive consequences.

I think it is an idea whose time has come.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-45 leads me to speak about Havre du Fjord, a home I recently visited in my riding of Jonquière. This is a home for youth struggling with addiction and alcohol problems. The employees of this house have seen a growing number of people use their treatments. These people also participate in rehabilitation programs. The home tries to provide a quality of life for adolescents and young adults so they can live a sober life, learn to love themselves, gain self-confidence, and then find a job and live a so-called normal life. Unfortunately, dependency is a life-long problem and one must learn to live with it.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that. Should the government not invest more in prevention, awareness, and treatment centres?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour to speak in the House again. I spoke last night to Bill C-46, and tonight I will speak to Bill C-45.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, who introduced Bill C-226, which dealt with impaired driving. The Prime Minister, interestingly, provided a letter to an organization made up of people who had lost loved ones to impaired drivers. They have asked for tough legislation, with mandatory minimums. The Prime Minister signed a letter prior to the election promising to introduce legislation with mandatory minimums, and Bill C-226 was that bill. Sadly, the Prime Minister has broken another promise by not supporting it.

The legalization of cannabis in Canada is being proposed through this bill, Bill C-45. Bill C-46 deals with the new impaired drivers who are expected to be on the road.

I listened intently to the justice minister and members on the other side, made notes, and tried to summarize what they were saying over and over again, which is to trust them and that they want to keep cannabis out of the hands of children, young Canadians, and organized crime. That is their motive.

This bill is being rushed, rammed through, with a promised end date of a normal two-year process. It will not be a two-year process. It will be ready and in place by July 1, Canada Day, of next year. Why the rush? Why are we telling the Senate, the new appointed, independent senators, that they must rush this through?

Why are we ignoring science? The government said it consulted thousands of Canadians. A parliamentary secretary of the government is a former police chief and clearly had a position that legalizing marijuana would not take it out of organized crime. Why the about-face? Why the one-eighty? We also saw the finance minister do an about-face on old age security once becoming a member of the government. It appears that the Prime Minister has an agenda to keep this as his number one promise: to legalize marijuana and to do it by July 1 of next year.

Is there truth behind the claim that it will keep cannabis out of the hands of children and young Canadians? What are the Liberals proposing? They are proposing that every household, including households with children, will be able to have four producing plants, and we know that four plants means 12 plants. There would be four producing plants up to a metre tall, then four plants that are halfway toward that, and plants that have just been planted so they can start growing and get ready for being harvested. We know through the medical marijuana program that four plants means 12 plants. Every home across Canada could legally have them. Is that going to keep cannabis out of the hands of children? A reasonable person would say no, that does not make any sense.

Youth aged 18 and older would be able to legally possess up to 30 grams. What is 30 grams? It is 60 joints. Right now, if Canadians are found with 60 joints, or 30 grams, in their possession, are they criminalized? I am sure many of us have spent time with the police and have seen how they handle illegal drugs. Are people stuck in jail and criminalized? No, the drugs are confiscated. Under Bill C-45, the drugs would not be confiscated anymore. People would be allowed to legally walk around with 60 joints in their pockets or backpacks if they were 18 and older. How about the 12-year-olds up to 18? They could have five grams legally. That is what is being proposed. Is that keeping it out of the hands of our children? Absolutely not.

There is a proverb, a wise saying, “A tree is known by its fruit.” What kind of fruit are we seeing in making it easier for children to have access to this? There are many situations where children do not have access to it. They now will have access to it.

Will it take it out of the hands of organized crime? According to the parliamentary secretary, a former police chief, no, it will not. According to experts, police, and people with law enforcement backgrounds in our caucus and in other caucuses, it will not take it out of their hands. Right now it is illegal. What is illegal now will be made legal. That is how they are dealing with the illegality problem. Organized crime will still want to make its money in some way.

We now can have 12-year-olds to 18-year-olds running around with five grams, 10 joints. It will be totally legal. It will not be confiscated. Eighteen-year-olds and older will have backpacks full of joints.

The government is saying that a majority of Canadians believe it should not be a criminal offence for youth to have cannabis. The option would be to decriminalize it. That has not been a proposal presented by the government. It would legalize it and make it available. People can grow it in every home. Children can have it in their possession legally, and it could not be confiscated. This is not what Canadians expected from the government. This has gone far beyond what is reasonable.

The government has also said that this new legislation is based on science and consultation. However, the consultation they received from law enforcement is that this is flawed. It will restrict their ability to take it out of the hands of children. It will restrict the opportunity to deal with children and say, “You cannot have this. This is bad for you.”

Science has said that it is bad for them. We have heard it time and again. The Canadian Medical Association has said that this is harmful for developing minds. The government is saying, “It may be, but we do not want them to have a criminal record”, which they are not going to get anyway. It will be confiscated.

What is being proposed by the government is not based on science. It is based on politics. It is based on political promises made during an election.

Will this make Canada safer? Will this help protect the health and safety of Canadians? Absolutely not. A reasonable person will say that this makes no sense. Why are they going ahead against science, against law enforcement, and risking the health and safety of Canadians?

I do not have time to get into the issue of road safety, with all these new impaired drivers on our roads and the cost to train police officers and the drug recognition experts, the DREs. There are no devices to determine whether a person is impaired. They could have these little strips that will indicate that there is marijuana in a person's system, but they do not determine whether there is impairment. It is going to be very difficult to get people who are truly impaired off the roads. We do not have the policing resources. What we have is legislation, Bill C-45, being rammed through by July 1 of next year, with no enforcement, no funding, no preparation, and no equipment to protect the health and safety of Canadians. I am shocked that the government is doing this, and I think Canadians are shocked too as they listen to this debate.

This will go on to the justice committee. It will be interesting to see whether the government is open to any amendments, because what it is proposing does not make sense. Canadians do not support this. They support taking time to do this right. I hope the government is flexible enough to listen to common sense, to be reasonable, and to base something on science that will be good for Canada and will truly protect our youth.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first opportunity to rise in debate on Bill C-45. I do think the government has achieved a good balance on this overall. It is appropriate that there are many gaps to be filled in by provincial regulation.

I am particularly concerned that a product that has such high profit margins not be overtaken and run by the cigarette industry or any of the existing large corporations that could force out, as my colleague the member for Kootenay—Columbia mentioned, smaller producers. In my own area of southern Vancouver Island, there are many people in what might be described as a craft industry of edibles for pain relief. They are enormously rigorous about what they produce. I would not want to see them forced out by large corporate interests.

However, I do have one concern about the legislation as drafted, and I wonder if it is open to amendments. The punishments found in the bill for those who violate provisions of this bill could involve indictable offences and prison sentences of up to 14 years. These strike me as excessive. I wonder if the government is open to amendments.

[David Lametti, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to support this bill.

First, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Justice and her parliamentary secretaries, especially the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest, for all their work on this bill.

Bill C-45 is important legislation that delivers on a core commitment of our government, to introduce legislation to legalize and strictly regulate cannabis in order to keep it out of the hands of youth and to keep profits from gangs and illegal elements of society.

Bill C-45 would move Canada forward in addressing the health and social harms that result from the current failed approach to cannabis. It would help reduce the role that organized crime currently plays in the production and distribution of cannabis in Canada. In addition it would place our government in a better position to protect the health and safety of Canadians, particularly youth.

Last spring, our government established the task force on cannabis legalization and regulation. The task force was given a mandate to consult broadly across Canada with experts in law enforcement and public health, as well as with community groups and ordinary Canadians. Over 30,000 responses were received by the task force through an online consultation. In its final report, released this past December, the task force was clear that the current approach to cannabis was simply not working.

Canadians, both youth and adults, use cannabis at high rates. Many do so without fully understanding the associated risks. They obtain their cannabis illegally, to the benefit of organized crime. The products they obtain are often produced in dangerous environments, without any regard for quality or the health of the consumer.

The science is clear: there are risks associated with cannabis consumption. Although some people use cannabis for therapeutic purposes, it can pose a serious health risk, especially for young people.

We know that these risks notwithstanding, a portion of the Canadian population chooses to consume cannabis just as they engage in other behaviours that can be detrimental to their health.

The question for us, then, as parliamentarians is how best to mitigate these risks and better protect the health and well-being of Canadians.

Our government believes that the answer is not in continuing to criminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis. Such a policy would only serve to compound its public health and safety risks. Instead, Canadians will be better served by adopting a public health approach. Such an approach would involve a controlled and strictly regulated system, with clear standards and requirements and backed with appropriate oversight and strong public education efforts. It is precisely this type of framework that Bill C-45 sets out to establish in Canada.

I will repeat that the consumption of cannabis is not without risks.

These risks have the potential to increase significantly, depending on a number of factors, including age at which use begins, frequency of use, duration of use, and the amount used. For example, youth are especially vulnerable, as their brains are still developing, and this health risk increases when they begin to use cannabis in early adolescence.

Particular health risks are also posed by illegally produced cannabis. Criminals do not worry about producing cannabis in a clean environment so that it is not contaminated with mould, bacteria, or heavy metals. They do not label their products to clearly communicate information about potency. They only care about making a profit and not getting caught.

Our government is serious about mitigating the risks and dangers of cannabis consumption. That is why an education campaign about cannabis for the general public is already under way.

Our government has adopted a proactive approach to education and public awareness by using social media to convey messages about drug-impaired driving and by inviting parents to have conversations with their children about drugs.

Through this public education campaign, our government is also addressing the issue of addiction. We want to enhance the knowledge that the public has about addiction to help Canadians understand the risks associated with cannabis use, especially for youth and other vulnerable populations. Our government also wants to provide Canadians with the information they need to make informed decisions about the choice to use cannabis.

Minimizing the harms and risks associated with cannabis use is also why Bill C-45 includes a number of powers that would allow our government to regulate the legal market. Under the bill, the Minister of Health would have the power to set regulatory requirements to address a broad range of health and safety issues. This includes requiring that cannabis be produced in a clean and sanitary environment and that it be appropriately packaged, with clear information on the label with regard to product potency and important health information.

Until now, my comments have focused on the effects of cannabis on health, and I explained how a public health approach would be better for mitigating those risks.

However, I now want to talk about how the existing approach to cannabis poses a unique threat to public health and safety. The existing approach aggravates the risks of cannabis because it creates a dynamic in which Canadians who decide to use cannabis are forced to do business with criminals, some of whom may have ties to organized crime. That exposes Canadians to the risk of violence and other criminal activities, including illegal drugs that are even more harmful than cannabis.

There is also a danger posed by large illegal grow operations, including those that are found in suburban neighbourhoods. This underground illegal activity can result in serious public health and safety issues, including explosions, fires, and damage to property.

Concern about these public health and public safety risks is shared by many Canadians, which is why our government is moving forward with its commitment to legalize and strictly regulate cannabis within a co-operative framework with the provinces, territories, and municipalities.

By introducing Bill C-45, our government is making Canadians' health and safety a top priority, as demonstrated by the fact that the very essence of this bill is based on a public health approach.

The regulatory measures set out in Bill C-45 are consistent with the recommendations made by the working group. They seek to better protect Canadians from the health and safety risks associated with marijuana, restrict access to cannabis, particularly for young people, and reduce the profits generated by the black market.

Bill C-45 would put strict rules in place across the entire commercial supply chain for cannabis production, distribution, and retail sales. It would provide the government with the ability to strictly regulate the safety and quality of cannabis products and to place limits on its promotion, packaging, and labelling in order to reduce its appeal to youth.

With this bill, our government will also put in place a seed to sale tracking system in order to monitor cannabis products as they pass from one stage to another in the supply chain, from the growing of marijuana to its retail sale. This system will prevent cannabis from being diverted to an illicit market and prevent illegal cannabis from entering the legal supply chain. The system will also make it possible to order the recall of products and remove them from the market.

Bill C-45 proposes a comprehensive approach for the oversight and control of cannabis that would provide Canadians with access to a legal source of cannabis that is strictly regulated for safety and quality. As with all products regulated in Canada, including food, medicine, and consumer products, Canadians should be able to have access to cannabis that they know meets minimum standards for safety and quality.

Colleagues, by establishing a robust regulatory framework for legal access to cannabis, supported by a strong public education and awareness campaign, Bill C-45 provides an opportunity for Canada to significantly reduce these risks and to better protect its youth.

My three children are 20, 18, and 16, so I deal with this challenge every day. I sincerely believe that this science-based, evidence-based bill is the best way to regulate and control cannabis.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, and I thank him for his question.

The question is a relevant one. What we have said is that to ensure there is proper regulation of cannabis, we need to remove it from the hands of criminals and ensure it is properly and safely regulated in co-operation with provinces and territories.

The problem with the decriminalization proposal put forward by the NDP is that it does not address that risk. As an interim measure, I do not think colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to see our youth or any community put at risk. That is why we are moving forward with Bill C-45 in this fashion.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House of Commons to express my support for Bill C-45, the cannabis act. With this bill, our government is fulfilling the promise that it made in the 2015 throne speech to legalize, regulate, and severely restrict access to marijuana for adults and keep it out of the hands of young people.

Let me begin my remarks by noting that three separate parliamentary reports have concluded that Canada's policy on criminalization creates harms that are disproportionate to the harms associated with cannabis use.

We first need to recognize that the existing system is not working. Canadians, including children and youth, have some of the highest rates of cannabis use in the world. The existing system allows the underground market to thrive, a market that is not regulated or tested and can be dangerous.

By providing regulated access to legal cannabis for adults only through a well-regulated industry or grown in limited amounts at home, our government's legislative proposal will address the disproportionate harms caused by the criminal prohibition of non-medicinal cannabis. Our goal is to protect public health and public safety of all Canadians, particularly young Canadians. Let me be clear. Bill C-45 would restrict youth access to both legal and illicit cannabis.

I would like to use the time I have been given to provide an overview of Bill C-45. The purpose of the bill, as set out in clause 7, is to protect public health and public safety. This bill is a departure from the approach based solely on criminal justice in that it provides a new regulatory framework to regulate and severely restrict access to cannabis while punishing those who conduct their activities outside the limits imposed by the bill.

Bill C-45 was developed bearing in mind our government's key policy objectives: to protect youth and to prevent them from accessing and using cannabis, to enhance public awareness regarding the risks of cannabis use, to deter illicit activities through appropriate measures proportionate to the crime, and to reduce the burden on the criminal justice system for minor cannabis offences.

Bill C-45 is divided into a number of parts.

Part 1 of Bill C-45 sets out the main criminal prohibitions, obligations, and offences relating to cannabis. More specifically, part 1 of the bill prohibits the possession, distribution, sale, production, importation, and exportation of cannabis.

For example, clause 8 of Bill C-45 establishes a general prohibition on cannabis possession, subject to certain restricted exceptions. One such exception permits adults aged 18 and older to possess, in a public place, 30 grams or less of dried legal cannabis or an equivalent amount of another form.

A young person would commit a criminal offence by possessing more than five grams of dried licit cannabis and would be subject to the application of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which is based on principles of rehabilitation and reintegration.

Nevertheless, we are not supporting, nor are we promoting, the idea that youth should be allowed to possess five grams or less of cannabis. We are encouraging the creation of provincial and territorial offences for possession amounts below five grams for young persons, thereby providing authority for police to seize the cannabis from young persons. Provinces would also have the ability to increase the minimum age for possession that would apply in their respective jurisdictions.

Clause 9 of Bill C-45 creates a distribution offence. “Distribute”, as defined in section 2, includes administering, giving, transferring, transporting, sending, delivering, providing, or otherwise making available in any manner, whether directly or indirectly, and offering to distribute. Needless to say, this is a definition that restricts a wide range of activities.

Before I move on any further, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with hon. member for Scarborough Southwest. It is very important that we do that.

Distribution of any amount of cannabis that is known to be illicit is prohibited. So is any distribution of cannabis, whether licit or illicit, to a person under 18 years of age. Adults would be permitted to distribute or give up to 30 grams of legal dried cannabis or an equivalent amount of another class to other adults.

Part 1 of the act also sets out restrictions related to promotion, packaging, labelling, display, and sales of cannabis, as well as the obligations on those licensed to conduct activities under the act.

For instance, clauses 17 and 26 of the bill contain promotion and packaging prohibitions where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they could be considered appealing to youth.

Clause 29 also prohibits the display of cannabis, including its labelling and packaging, in any way that would allow youth to see it. Clause 30 contains a similar prohibition regarding the display of all cannabis accessories. Promotional information regarding the ingredients and THC and cannabidiol or CBD levels will be permitted.

The proposed restrictions on promotion are intended to protect youth from being persuaded through marketing or advertising to consume cannabis. At the same time, consumers need access to clear, objective information to help make informed decisions about consumption.

Part 2 of Bill C-45 sets out a general ticketing scheme applicable to adults who commit minor offences. This part would enable a peace officer to issue tickets to individuals who were 18 years of age or over or to organizations. A ticket would be issued to a person who committed a less serious offence related to possession, distribution, sale, or production.

For example, public possession over 30 grams and up to 50 grams of dried illicit cannabis or its equivalent would be subject to a ticket under proposed paragraph 51(2)(a). If the accused pays within the period set out in the ticket, it will be considered a plea of guilty to the offence described in the ticket, and the conviction will be entered into the judicial record of the accused. However, this judicial record must be kept separate and apart from other judicial records, and it must not be used for any purpose that would identify the accused as a person dealt with under the cannabis act. That is under clause 52.

The ability to issue tickets would limit criminal prosecution for less serious offences and reduce the burden on the police and the criminal justice system, resulting in fewer court delays. I know all members are very concerned about that.

Part 3 of the proposed act sets out a general licensing scheme for the production, distribution, sale, importation, and exportation of cannabis. Setting the parameters for the creation of a legal cannabis industry, part 3 would provide the Minister of Health with authority and discretion to process applications and to issue licences and permits for otherwise prohibited activities and to add licence conditions. Part 3 also includes grounds for the Minister of Health to refuse to issue or amend or to suspend or revoke a licence.

For example, under proposed paragraph 62(7)(a), the powers provide that the minister may refuse to issue, renew, or amend a licence or permit if doing so is likely to create a risk to public health or public safety, including the risk of cannabis being diverted to an illicit market or activity.

Part 4 of Bill C-45 includes general authorizations for some cannabis-related activities. Clause 69 sets out minimum measures for the protection of public health and public safety that would need to be included in provincial legislation governing sale. In particular, a person who is authorized to sell cannabis under a provincial act must be required to only sell cannabis that has been produced by a person authorized under the federal cannabis act for commercial purposes, not sell cannabis to young persons, keep appropriate records, and take adequate measures to reduce the risk of cannabis that they possess being diverted to an illicit market.

Part 5, finally, would authorize the Minister of Health to issue orders to verify compliance, prevent non-compliance, and address issues related to public health and safety.

There are many other parts to this cannabis act to which my hon. colleagues will be speaking. I look forward to hearing their remarks, as I am sure my colleagues across the way do.

In closing, Bill C-45 delivers on the commitment our government made in the 2015 throne speech.

The bill proposes an effective and balanced framework for the legalization of cannabis and strict regulations that correspond to our government's objectives with respect to health and public safety, protecting children and youth, as well as criminal justice.