Bill C-46 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 amends the provisions of the Criminal Code that deal with offences and procedures relating to drug-impaired driving. Among other things, the amendments
(a) enact new criminal offences for driving with a blood drug concentration that is equal to or higher than the permitted concentration;
(b) authorize the Governor in Council to establish blood drug concentrations; and
(c) authorize peace officers who suspect a driver has a drug in their body to demand that the driver provide a sample of a bodily substance for analysis by drug screening equipment that is approved by the Attorney General of Canada.
Part 2 repeals the provisions of the Criminal Code that deal with offences and procedures relating to conveyances, including those provisions enacted by Part 1, and replaces them with provisions in a new Part of the Criminal Code that, among other things,
(a) re-enact and modernize offences and procedures relating to conveyances;
(b) authorize mandatory roadside screening for alcohol;
(c) establish the requirements to prove a person’s blood alcohol concentration; and
(d) increase certain maximum penalties and certain minimum fines.
Part 3 contains coordinating amendments and the coming into force provision.

Criminal Code

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

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful that the Conservatives finally understand that actions taken here in Parliament have unintended consequences on municipal budgets and police budgets. Having been a city councillor for the better part of 10 years, I can tell the House that the accidental downloading by the last government was quite extensive. I can assure the member that we are sensitive to that and are talking to our partners on those issues right now to make sure that, as we move forward with the legislation, the training and the compensation are there.

It seems that the point that was being made was that until we figure out exactly how we can test properly for impaired driving as a result of cannabis, we really should not move to legalize it. Keeping in mind that we have one of the highest rates of cannabis use in the western world, particularly by our young people, would the member opposite not agree that impaired driving is already happening?

The legislation would allow us to start moving towards regulating it, criminalizing that behaviour, and making sure that we do the public education to stop that behaviour because of the risk it poses to Canadians everywhere.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not what their task force advised. They advised that before any legislation is pushed through, these tools need to be there. How can we measure whether a young person or an adult is really impaired if the tool is not there? It is really unrealistic that the government would push this through.

Talking about expenses, earlier a member on this side mentioned that spending that money over five years and not using it properly is not the way to have really good laws. Just hastily passing it through and not making sure that it is done properly, that is really not a responsible lawmaker's job.

Our job in Parliament—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Mount Royal.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I assure my colleague that at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights we will all work together to try to make sure the legislation is as well-rounded as possible.

I have a couple of questions. I listened attentively to the speech of my hon. colleague. She mentioned concerns with both the mandatory testing and the number of hours after the alleged driving that an individual could be tested. Both of these were found in Bill C-226, the private member's bill of the hon. member for Lévis—Lotbinière, which the hon. member voted for.

In essence, both of them allow us to make sure our roads are safer. The fact that a police officer can, on any lawful stop, ask somebody to submit to a breathalyzer test, to me, is a good thing, and so is the fact that an individual cannot argue that they drank alcohol right before they got in the car so their blood alcohol limit was not reached when they were in the car; it only got reached after. These are good things. They keep bad people off the road.

Why does the hon. member have concerns about these when she voted for them already in a different law?

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are people of different cultures in my riding, and I can give the member true stories. One of my constituents complained to me that she was pulled over by a police officer and she was trembling because she did not understand why she was stopped by police. Because of the differences in language, she did not understand exactly what happened.

Imagine if the police suddenly come into an individual's house and tried to make them do things. There have been incidents, probably, in the Lower Mainland, and a lot of abuses have been committed by people who do not follow the proper rules and who have not been trained on very sensitive issues.

That is the question and I would ask the Liberals to reply instead.

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

Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak to this specific issue until I had heard some of the presentations in the House here today, in particular around the issues of treatment, housing, and dealing with addictions and the intersectionalities around mental health.

I just want to be clear that as we move forward on this important legislation, we are not leaving those elements out simply because they have not been spoken to specifically in the bill. There is an all-of-government approach to ensuring that the evidence-based process is dealing with the dynamics and tragedies, as well as with the challenges that the intersections among addiction and mental health pose, right across the board.

I want to highlight some of the ways we are doing that, just to make sure that Canadians listening tonight, as well as members of Parliament, understand that this is more than just simply a question of cannabis. This is a question of how we deal with some very significant challenges in society in general.

Let me start with housing. We know that there is a significant spend in the budget this year. It is more than just the $11.2 billion promised for a new national housing strategy. There is also a repurposing of the national housing program as it relates to homeless persons.

In addition to that, though, I think the most important accomplishment that has gone unnoticed in the House is in the health accords we have signed with the provinces, and in particular the province I represent, Ontario. There is a specific component for housing supports for dealing with addiction and mental health issues, and how they intersect. That is the support required to turn housing into supportive housing. It is the best way to deal with addiction and mental health issues, especially as they materialize in the lives of people who are chronically homeless.

While it is not specific to cannabis alone, because cannabis, quite frankly, is not the major pressure in that area, the reality is that there is a new era of treatment coming forward as a direct result of budget 2017, and tying together all these different pieces of legislation. I hope the NDP members can find it in their hearts to support the budget, because it delivers one of the best housing programs this country has ever seen.

Additional steps are also being taken on this front. The previous government had a very silent approach to the housing sector. It did not allow for the taking of a health care fund from a province or a municipality, or even a third party, as a subsidy to pay a mortgage for supportive housing. In other words, if there was a grant from CMHC to deliver supportive housing, the whole program was supposed to be run off that grant and not tie in other government programs to create the dynamic partnerships that are required to deal with the intersectionalities of health, mental health, and addiction issues.

We are removing those stipulations put in by the previous government to allow for dynamic partnerships on the ground to materialize in communities right across this country to deal with this issue, and in particular, in major cities where we know that addiction is having a huge impact on people who are homeless.

On the issue, again, of dealing with the impaired driving, dealing with the public education, and the support of the police departments in this area, we also know that our program, which is supporting municipalities with infrastructure dollars to unseen levels in this country, takes the pressure off municipal budgets and allows for municipal governments to have more flexibility to deal with the challenges as they materialize in their communities. This frees up resources, in particular, where local municipalities pay for policing to deliver that policing support.

We also know that downstream, as we start to move this program through the legislative process, as we start to move towards legislation, there needs to be an in-depth conversation with municipalities, local police forces, contracted police forces, aboriginal police forces, as well as municipalities and provinces, in terms of the public health side of this, as well as the public safety part of this.

The training of police officers and the support for police departments is very much front-of-mind as we start to move forward, but the first thing we have to get in place is the legislative regime. We have to get the public safety components in place. Then we have to sit down and talk to police forces as to the best way to deliver some of these resources.

I was on the police service board when the previous government made some changes to the Criminal Code and required specialized training for police forces. It mandated that training, which was only available in the United States, and did not provide any support for police officers to be trained. We, as local municipalities, had to pick up the costs for that.

That was really sort of typical of the previous government's complete lack of understanding of how their decisions impacted local municipalities. The program we were mandated to have our police officers take was not even offered in French, let alone in Canada. We were sending police officers south of the border to be trained to meet federal requirements, with no financial support but also no linguistic support for the francophone police forces right across the country.

I can assure the House that in this particular piece of legislation, we are cognizant of the whole-of-government approach that is required, and the specifics that are required to support municipalities as they deal with a lot of the enforcement and regulatory requirements to make sure the process is safe.

In particular around impaired driving, one of the most important things we have to keep in mind is that many of the arguments we are hearing from the other side, particularly in the last presentation around impaired driving, were the same arguments used to try to thwart breathalyzers coming in.

They were the same things that tried to slow down tougher drunk driving laws in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Once again there was a Progressive Conservative opposition and the Liberal government moved on these issues to protect public safety.

The other side pretends to be tough on crime, but as a good colleague of mine on this side of the House says, sometimes it is better to be smart on crime than tough on crime. If we are going to reduce the risk to public safety, we need to have these comprehensive conversations.

I want to assure the House on the positions raised by the New Democrats around the support for housing, treatment for drugs, and public education, those programs are under way. We can see it in the language of our health minister. We can see it in the language of our infrastructure minister. We can see it in the language of the minister I work with in families, children and social development. We can also see it in our new relationship with the municipalities.

We do not consider municipalities creatures of the provinces. They are a legitimate order of government in the country. We deal with them directly. If members come to the FCM conference over the next weekend, they will see what happens when there is actually a positive relationship, when we show up at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities with a full ministerial approach, what exactly a new relationship with municipalities looks like.

On this side, we are proud of that record. It is one of the reasons so many of us from municipal councils ran to come to Ottawa to change the way the federal government spoke with municipalities, large or small, northern or southern, remote, rural, or coastal. It is a proud achievement of our government that not only are we funding municipalities, but we are also working with them to develop policies to make their laws and bylaws more effective, and our laws, rules, and regulations more effective.

We do the same thing with the aboriginal governments and provincial governments. That is why a whole of government approach and an all of Canada approach is going to pay off with such dividends, especially as we move toward a much better Criminal Code, a much better approach to impaired driving, and a much better partnership in terms of making sure when we deliver those services, they are there.

To recap very quickly, housing money is there; treatment dollars are there; supportive housing capacity is being built in our country; additional resources are being delivered to cities to pick up the tab on some of these challenges. The dialogue continues, and it is a good dialogue. I hope the rest of Parliament can support us as we move forward on this, because it is a new era in federal-municipal relations. It is entirely focused on giving cities the capacity they need to deliver programs that we are working with in concert to deliver.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the member opposite that I certainly am committed to seeing impaired drivers off the road. However, the government likes to pretend it is fact-based, evidence-based, and science-based, but in this case, the science for determining whether people are impaired with cannabis is not at a place where it could actually be determined by the tests. If we decide to arbitrarily take a zero level, that still leads us to the other fact, which is, in 12 months there is not enough money in the budget or time for the government to actually implement the roadside tests that would be needed. That is another issue.

The other fact that would be relevant is that the provinces and municipalities do not have the money to take the download that the government is putting forward. Would the member agree that the plan that has been put forward has not been well thought out and is not in fact going to be able to be done?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in my previous position, I was the parliamentary secretary for intergovernmental affairs, and I can assure the House those conversations are ongoing. We have not downloaded one dollar yet. We are in negotiations right now to make sure that when this happens, the new policies arrive with the appropriate resources to deal with them.

As I said, cities have never been happier in my lifetime, with a federal government that has finally stepped up and recognized them as an equal partner in the affairs of this country.

As it relates to the technology which the opposite side does not think will be there, there is a problem right now on city streets, on streets in rural communities, and on highways across the country. There are impaired drivers with cannabis and other narcotics in their system that are wreaking havoc and creating a very dangerous situation. If the other side wants to sit there and wait until they are convinced of the science before they act, that is their business. This government will not step back and wait to make streets in our country safer. We are going to act now and move forward now.

I would ask that member to review the science in Australia, and review the science in the United States. They have already moved on this in Oregon. Talk to MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, who are completely convinced the science is there, as we are convinced. If they want to live in some alternative world where climate change is not a science, and addiction reduction services are not scientific, they can live in that world, but I can tell them right now that the debate on this one has given us the evidence we need to move to make our cities and our country safer.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member giving us his thoughts. Obviously, he served as a councillor in the Toronto area, or at least that is my understanding. I served as a councillor in a small area in the interior of British Columbia.

One thing that was pointed out by the member of Parliament for St. Albert—Edmonton is that Colorado has gone through with legalization and set aside tens of millions of dollars for public education and safety measures, and the government is actually proposing $9 million over five years.

I also want to challenge the member's math when it comes to housing. It is not $11 billion now; it is over 10 or 11 years.

[An hon. member]

Twelve years.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Twelve years. I understood it was 11.

The problem I have is that when we say we are going to allow things like gaming, what happens is provincial governments say they are going to legalize it, but they will make sure that any monies will go toward helping people get off of it. Then what happens? A new government gets in or a new approach comes up, and they need to cut transfers, just like the Martin government did during the 1990s, to pay the bills, and then it all gets downloaded on either the social costs to the provinces or on the individuals themselves and the places they live.

I have heard nothing from the Liberal government to say it is truly committed to making sure that social harms are going to be addressed not just with funding over the short term but over the long term.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to watch the opposition look for solutions in a bill when those solutions actually lie in a different piece of legislation. As I said, the health accords have extraordinary dollars being invested in prevention, harm reduction, and addiction issues. It is the hallmark of the new provincial health accords and that is where parts of those issues are dealt with.

On the housing file, let me do some math for the member. Last year in budget 2016, we doubled the base funding in the housing program from about $2.3 billion to $4.8 billion. We then added $11.2 billion on top of that and an additional $11.2 billion in low-interest loans and mortgage financing, which means the total is well over $27 billion over the next 11 years. That money is already starting to be spent now. We have more than doubled the amount of dollars going into housing, and as a result, for the first time in 25 years, we have not only a national housing strategy but a 10-year agreement that we will be signing with provincial and territorial partners.

Additionally, there will be close to $4.5 billion on aboriginal housing, with more to come on that file. There are additional dollars for housing in the health care budget and the natural resources budget. It is one of the most comprehensive, dynamic, and substantial investments in housing, the biggest investment in the history of this country and the longest investment in the history of this country. It comes after 10 years of the Conservative government doing squat for people needing housing supports in this country.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this House to speak to Bill C-46, an act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other acts. In simpler terms, this bill seeks to address drug-impaired driving, more specifically regarding marijuana use.

This bill goes hand in hand with Bill C-45, which provides a framework for the legalization of marijuana. The NDP has always stood for sensible measures to prevent impaired driving. This bill is a step in the right direction. We have to focus on powerful deterrents that can actually help prevent tragedies. Therein lies the weakness of this bill.

Before this legislation comes into effect, we need a robust public awareness campaign, and that has not been done. I will discuss that over the next few minutes. Also, Bill C-46 does not clearly define the levels of marijuana in saliva that would qualify as impairment. That is another problem.

We need a strategy that is based on science in order to stop impaired drivers. The bill sets out no reliable strategy or benchmarks that would make it possible to set clear limits around THC levels.

Impaired driving is the number one cause of criminal death in Canada. This is a very serious problem that affects every part of the country, and we must address it. We must do everything we can to raise awareness around driving while impaired, either by drugs or alcohol, and to put prevention programs in place. We must give those that make arrests, like the police, all the tools they need.

Canada has one of the worst impaired driving records in the OECD. We have a lot of work to do. Cannabis legalization will have a number of repercussions. We will need to be ready, and we will need to take the necessary steps to mitigate these repercussions. We have to develop an effective public awareness campaign, and the Liberal government has to properly fund it. There is no such campaign at present—the work has not even begun yet. The proposed funds are not only lacking, they have not been invested yet. Despite all of that, the marijuana legalization legislation will be coming into force in about a year's time.

The Canadian Automobile Association, or CAA, a well-established association of which I am a member, recently ran a headline on that very question that read, “Federal marijuana announcement step in right direction but leaves unanswered questions”.

As we know, the CAA is a group that advocates for drivers and other road users. Without wanting to promote the CAA, I still want to say that they are now looking after cyclists, too. I will now read a quote from the article in question that is well worth hearing:

While the government committed today to making more money available to train police in drug recognition and to acquire testing devices, it didn’t say how much or when it will be available.

I will read more later, but the gist of it is that police, law enforcement in general, needs proper training. They need every tool available to address the reality of people driving under the influence of marijuana. The government has made no information available to us. We have neither the tools, nor the funds to deal with this issue. This is a big problem. It is one of the bill's weakest points.

The article continues as follows:

The government also reiterated a budget 2017 commitment to spend less than $2 million a year over five years on public education—a sum that is clearly inadequate, given the misconceptions about marijuana’s effect on driving.

Less than $2 million a year is not enough. What is worse is that the plan offers nothing tangible, specific, and of enough substance to tackle the many misconceptions that currently exist about marijuana use and its effect on drivers.

Some people still believe that smoking marijuana has no effect on their ability to drive. Some even believe smoking marijuana makes them better drivers. We must bridge that information gap with a massive information awareness campaign that will go on not just for one year, or two or even three, but rather in perpetuity. We must ensure information is always available when we are dealing with dangerous substances. For example, in the case of alcohol, education campaigns designed to prevent the consequences of impaired driving are still ongoing and will keep going for another 10 or 20 years. We can never stop educating people. As the CAA points out, less than $2 million is but a drop in the bucket, given current needs.

In response to the Liberal's marijuana legalization bill, the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec, or SAAQ, has already kicked off its campaign to raise awareness about the effects of cannabis on driving. The bill has also put pressure on the provinces, which are increasingly called upon to invest in awareness and prevention so that people, especially kids, who are our future, have all the information they need.

The SAAQ's campaign costs money. The Liberal government has yet to give our municipal and provincial governments a single red cent. The bill should specify the percentage of taxes going to the federal, provincial, and municipal governments. That would guarantee that the provinces and municipalities will not get shortchanged in the long run.

This is critical, as those who really need the tools and the funds to properly educate our youth and raise their awareness are the schools, our social organizations, everyone involved in health care, everyone working with young people, youth centres, and stakeholders at every level of government.

Being legal does not make a substance safe. Marijuana use creates all sorts of health and social problems. People need to know about this. They need to take every precaution if they decide to consume marijuana. Personally, I would prefer it if marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol were no longer consumed, but as we all know, the world does not work that way.

We need to make all the information available so that people can take the necessary precautions if they decide to consume cannabis, and so that no one ever drives under the influence, which would certainly be dangerous. This information should reach the public, and especially young people, to ensure we make everyone safer.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, 3,000 people were found to have drugs in their system when picked up in impaired driving situations in 2015, so 3,000 people were endangering the lives of other Canadians, as well as their own lives, so a zero tolerance program is what we are suggesting in part 1 of our legislation. In part 2 we are talking about simplifying legislation so that the courts will not be clogged the way they are now and we can have a more efficient court system.

A meter will determine whether there are drugs in the saliva, which would also mean in the blood and in the brain. Zero tolerance would mean that if the meter detects minimum levels of drugs, the person is then liable for criminal charges. It is not a question of how much one can get away with; it is that if there are any drugs in that person's body, he or she is not allowed to drive. That is the simple message that we will be putting out to youth and other people who currently drive while impaired.

My question for the hon. member is this. It seems like the NDP keeps bringing forward what one can get away with, when getting away with anything is what we are trying to avoid. We are trying to limit the use of drugs in people who are driving, so where does the zero tolerance point sit with the NDP?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, figuring out where that point is is very important. It is not in the legislation.

No matter what the legislation says about legal limits for marijuana, the problem remains. Where is the money to support police officers and law enforcement agencies that have to confront this new reality? Where is the money to help the provinces and municipalities educate people? That has already started. Quebec has already funded an awareness campaign. Where is that money? The government is putting up less than $2 million per year, which is not enough.

What we need in the legislation is a firm commitment on the part of the Liberal government to transfer a portion of the marijuana sales tax to the provinces and the municipalities. They are the ones who will be burdened with doing the education and awareness and setting up social programs for the people who will be using marijuana and sometimes, unfortunately, abusing it.