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

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for St. Albert—Edmonton for his support in principle of Bill C-46. I, like him, am looking forward to the bill's coming before the justice committee to listen to some experts.

I want to respond to one of the concerns the member raised. I want to assure him that the legislation as proposed only authorizes the minister to approve a device. I want to reassure him that approval is based on a recommendation from the Canadian Society of Forensic Science, which has a drugs and driving committee. It looks at the best available science and at all of the devices, and they are put through the most rigorous testing standards before they are recommended by the committee to the minister.

The legislation as proposed only authorizes the minister to approve a device, but that approval is dependent entirely on the recommendation of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science and based on the best available advice and science. I wanted to provide the member with that assurance and I hope that allays some of his concerns.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice for his work on this incredibly complex file. He certainly brings a lot of background, depth, and experience, and I thank him for that.

I would say that it nonetheless highlights, though, that the science is not necessarily there in terms of a device that is ready to go. To that end, I will quote the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, which says:

Although the accuracy of oral fluid screening devices has been improving, they are not perfect. Some drivers who have used drugs will test negative and there remains a small probability that some drug-free drivers will test positive. When a driver who has used drugs is missed by the screening procedure, it has implications for road safety...

That is from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, and it highlights the fact that there is still work to do in terms of ensuring that we have screening devices that provide a consistent scientific method of detecting impairment.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to let my colleague know that I agree with him 100%. For the Conservative government, the health and safety of Canadians was always the priority, and he is bang on when he says the science is not there.

With all due respect to my colleague across the way, when we look at the science that is out there, it is new. It really has not been tested. It has been tested in very few jurisdictions. When we look at something as complicated as driving while impaired, the tests just do not live up to what Canadians are expecting for maintaining safety. Parents have asked me about school bus drivers. Union members have talked to me about heavy equipment.

We know that for alcohol, the tests cost pennies per test. So far, we know a marijuana swab is going to cost somewhere between $20 and $35, and then there will be a cost on top of that for the blood test.

I want to ask my colleague to tell us who is going to pay for these costs. Who is going to pay for the training of the officers, for the toxicology, for the tests? My community is worried that these costs are going to be downloaded to the provinces and municipalities.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Oshawa raises a very good point. It goes back to my earlier point that while the government is moving forward with legislation, at this time there does not seem to be plan for implementation and enforcement, or to the degree that there is one, it is coming up short.

In terms of the costs, there are significant costs to this measure. My hon. friend mentioned blood tests and screening devices, equipment that police departments have to acquire. Who is going to pay for them? At this point in time, it seems it is largely the municipalities that are going to pick up the tab. There is absolutely no funding commitment from the government.

In terms of police officer training, my hon. friend and others mentioned that testing for drug impairment is far more complex than testing for alcohol impairment. It requires significant training. Right now there are approximately 600 officers who have this training to meet the impact of legalization. That number has to reach, it is estimated, at least 2,000. Again the question is about who pays for it, and again it is the provinces and municipalities. The government would like to pat itself on the back and say it kept a promise while downloading so much of the responsibility to the provinces and municipalities.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that well-documented speech.

My understanding is that everyone will end up paying for this vague and arbitrary approach.

Does he agree that the whole country, all of the municipalities, and all of the provinces will end up paying for an election promise that was nothing more than a flight of fancy, a tasty treat tossed out on the fly to tempt voters?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is bang on that this arbitrary date of July 1, 2018, without any funding or support to assist the provinces or municipalities with implementation and enforcement, is nothing more than a way for the government to take political credit.

In answer to the member for Oshawa and to follow up on the point that was raised by the member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, in terms of the cost for training police officers, the cost of training one police officer is estimated to be somewhere in the range of $17,000 to $20,000. That is a huge chunk of change from municipalities.

It is an abdication of leadership from the government to say that it is moving forward with this legislation, provinces and municipalities will have to pick up the tab, and it will wash its hands clean.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, in relation to costs, I appreciate the member's careful and thoughtful analysis.

In relation to costs, could the member speculate on the costs of not taking more of these impaired drivers, whether impaired by drugs or alcohol, off the roads? One tragic death is a huge human and physical cost.

I have a second part to my question. In the last Parliament there were a number of bills that would have included massive costs to the justice systems of the provinces, territories, and municipalities. What provision was made to cover those costs for those other bills?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, to the question raised by my colleague, the member for Yukon, one death as a result of impaired driving is one death too many.

The question, however, in responding legislatively, is what is the best approach to take? That is pertinent to the issue of mandatory roadside testing.

One of the issues that we have with impaired drivers is that we have seen this general drop. It is still too high, but we have seen a significant drop year after year as a result of a combination of public awareness, changes to the Criminal Code, and other legislative changes. The people who are responsible for the deaths are a relatively small group of repeat offenders, hard-core drunk drivers. Those are the people we have to go after. Whether this bill fully does that is a question that needs to be thoroughly considered at committee.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I wish to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Windsor West. I think we need to hear from as many people as possible so we can get to the bottom of a bill that seems pretty poorly put together to me, thanks.

Notwithstanding the arguments I am about to lay out against this bill, I will be voting in favour of it at second reading. I will do so not because I think it is any good, but because I really need the answers that I hope to get from the expert witnesses who appear before the committee. Then I will be able to have the conversation with voters in my riding, many of whom have questions not just about marijuana legalization, but about its effects on driving.

Bills C-46 and C-45 were introduced together. At the time, I thought it made perfect sense to introduce a bill to legalize marijuana together with a bill detailing how these measures will be handled and consequences for things like impaired driving.

Unfortunately, when I started reading the two bills, I quickly became disillusioned. After 18 months of work, the Liberal committee came up with some real gems to include in Bill C-45, like saying that marijuana would not be sold to people under the age of 18. It seems to me that it did not take 18 months of work to come up with that. That is, however, the first recommendation.

We know very well that there are several studies showing that marijuana use has an impact on the development of the brain of regular users. A number of experts say that we should prohibit marijuana use until a person is at least 21 years old, or even 25. In their bill, the Liberals say that the provinces will be free to set the legal age as they see fit.

We will be in a mess if some provinces decide to set the legal age at 25 years, others at 21, and others at 18. How does this correlate with driver’s licences? In Quebec, when a person is given a temporary driver’s licence, there is zero tolerance for alcohol. That is because a person is given a licence at the age of 16, and that takes them to the age of 18 when they play by the same rules as everyone else, with demerit points.

If Quebec, or another province, or several provinces together decided to set the legal age for using marijuana at 21 or 25 years of age, how would this be harmonized with driver’s licences? How would zero tolerance be harmonized, and to what extent should it be considered? These are all questions for which there are no answers, because in both the first and second bill there has been virtually no consultation with the provinces, with aboriginal groups, or with the municipalities.

After 18 months, the second conclusion in the report is that the THC level in the marijuana that will be sold has not established. A corollary to this is that the level of THC at which a person would be considered to be driving under the influence has not yet been established. We are being told that regulations will follow. Once again, they are kicking the can down the road, saying we do not have an answer and so we will put that off until later, hoping to perhaps find an answer some day. These are all considerations that do not offer any reassurance for people who are trying first to get their heads around the marijuana legislation so they can then see how it will be enforced.

There is also nothing about the profits generated by this new state enterprise. Will they be reinvested in health care? The Liberals seem to have said in the past that health transfers, which have already been cut and allocated, included all that and there was no new money to give the provinces, although most of the responsibilities under the bills that we are discussing fall in the provinces’ court.

I would also like to make a connection with the survey released this morning. First off, the survey results show that 50% of Quebeckers are opposed to legalizing marijuana.

It is almost the reverse in the rest of Canada, where about the same percentage of people agree with legalizing marijuana. What I understand from the 50% of Quebecers who are saying no to legalization is that the measures the Liberals are proposing in their Bill C-45 and Bill C-46 are not giving Quebeckers any reassurance. I have mentioned a few of those measures, relating to driving, but there are many others.

In addition, many rental housing owners are wondering how they are going to manage their contracts with their tenants when the tenants are allowed to grow and smoke pot at home, because that would be legal.

A lot of questions arise in some very broad areas, and Bill C-45 is entirely silent on them. Obviously, the purpose of Bill C-46 is different.

As a result, 54% of Quebeckers are opposed to legalizing marijuana, to be on the safe side. If there were answers to their questions, those percentages might change. That is why I am going to put so much effort into trying to get answers in committee. The members of my party will be proposing quite a few amendments, so that Canadians, wherever they are, can finally get answers to their questions and feel reassured about their concerns.

Also, and I am now coming back to Bill C-46, in the same survey, 65% of Quebeckers and 60% of Canadians reported that the link to road accidents was their primary concern.

Personal use of marijuana to relax, as weekend recreation, when someone wants to trade their bottle of wine for a joint, seems to be relatively accepted and acceptable. However, when it comes to impaired driving, we have a serious problem.

The problem is not resolved in Bill C-45, because this legislation provides no tools. First, the level of THC is not defined, and evidently there are no precise measurement instruments for determining, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a person drove while impaired.

I am going to refer to another statistic, but this one relates more to alcohol. The leading cause of death in criminal cases is impaired driving causing death. This is our primary source of criminal mortality in Canada. Out of all the OECD countries, we have one of the worst records. If we add other substances that may be difficult to measure, along with mixtures of those substances that we are even less able to measure, this becomes a big problem. This is something of great concern to all Quebeckers and Canadians who think about this issue and who, like me, do not find answers to their questions in these bills.

I have the feeling that we are putting the cart before the horse. During the Conservative era just before the Liberal government, the Conservatives were all about minimum sentences, criminalization, and longer sentences, but they were not able to show that these measures had a direct impact on the crime rate. Nevertheless, a lot of Liberals seem to be following in their footsteps when they say, and this is in Bill C-46, that if someone were convicted of impaired driving, the penalty might be raised from 14 years, as is currently the case in the Criminal Code, to life in prison.

Here they are legislating about the consequences of a problem that they are not able to identify. It seems to me that there is a serious problem.

I will be voting for the bill, not because I believe it to be sound, but because I want to get clarification.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the 20 minutes of comments and reflections. He is quite right in saying that it is important that we ask questions.

I would like to know the logic behind the NDP's position, which is to immediately decriminalize the simple possession of marijuana even before we have the bill and the committee's recommendations. The party has stated its position several times in the House. However, the member says that we are putting the cart before the horse and that we have no answers. Does the NDP believe that we should take action immediately without even thinking about it?

What is the logic behind this position? We have one year to debate this matter. We have one year to draft a bill that will finally resolve something that has not worked for 100 years. Legalizing cannabis must be done properly and that is what we are doing.

I would like my colleague to respond to that.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, the answer is very simple and is even found in the poll released this morning. Many Quebeckers, 35% as I recall, referred to diversion, which is equivalent to decriminalization. This means that, in general, people want marijuana, the softest drug that can be consumed, to remain illegal.

As a secondary school teacher for 25 years, I saw this happen time and again. Parents did not want to go through a trial. If their children used marijuana just once, parents did not want them to have a criminal record that could thwart a potential career or potential trips to the Untied States. That is the number one concern. Everyone recognizes that smoking a joint is not a serious enough crime to warrant a criminal record.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague a question about the impairment testing aspects of the bill. I have some significant concerns about the legalization of marijuana in general, mainly because of the impact it will have on the roads.

The government talks as if there is readily available, clear, reliable testing for marijuana and other drug-related impairment. The reality is that the testing for that is much more difficult and the tests are not nearly as clear or readily available as they are in the case of alcohol. This is because of differences in the physical properties of the substances we are talking about. As much as we can look at more effective ways of combating marijuana use, our party favours a ticketing alternative within the context of maintaining the criminal prohibitions.

I want to hear the member's thoughts specifically on how we can move forward, recognizing the real concerns about whether we can effectively test for impairment.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, one of the campaigns that struck a chord with all Quebeckers and likely all Canadians was the one that said that drunk driving is a crime. It is now part of our mores. Obviously, people break the law, but everyone understands that drinking and driving is a crime. If drinking and driving is a crime, then driving under the influence of marijuana should be too.

It is difficult to determine what the threshold will be for people who drive while under the influence of marijuana. How will that threshold be determined when a person has consumed both alcohol and marijuana? Until we have a scientifically determined threshold and screening equipment, I think that it would be difficult to move forward.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to join the debate today on Bill C-46, an act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. This deals with the decriminalizing and legalization of marijuana in our society.

The issue facing us today is rather ironic for me. Legalization of marijuana is comparable in many respects to a bill I brought before the House of Commons on single-event sports betting. It was about the legalization of something that the public wanted, and the cost of the criminality element to it was very robust. I still get the comparisons to this issue from people who are lobbying to legalize single-event sports betting activities in Canada. My bill was defeated by the Liberals, primarily the Prime Minister and his cabinet.

Therefore, when this passes, people will be able to legally consume cannabis, but they still will be unable to bet on single-event sports. That is around a $10 billion a year of loss that goes to primarily organized crime. Those funds could have been diverted to health care, education, as well gaming addiction and other things related to it.

I say this now because I have seen some of this work develop and specifically why this did not even get moved to a committee. There clearly was a design by the Prime Minister, his cabinet, and his parliamentary cabal to keep that from going to committee for their own purposes, and there are some very debatable reasons for that.

However, I want to focus on this bill. It would move to the legalization of a consumable product, being a drug, which has consequential, sociological, and social elements that will frame our society around the use of it. In particular, we are talking about drug-impaired driving. Since 1925, it has been illegal to have drugs in one's system and to drive a motorized vehicle. Driving while under the influence of alcohol is the largest killer of Canadians under a criminal offence for murder, and we have not yet found the proper repertoire of responses to it.

Listening to the debate today, the Liberals have not really participated much. This is a common thing that happens here. I would invite all those viewing to visit an independent site called “openparliament.ca”. People can actually track their members' participation. Many members just sit here and do not participate on a regular basis. People can even look at the volume of what they have chosen to intervene on and what they have chosen not to intervene on.

I have listened with intent to some of the concerns raised by the Conservatives. They relate to some of the practical problems we have with the identification of those who are intoxicated or under the influence of a drug while driving. There is the difficulty that science has right now. There is the expansion of police powers, which are very much challenged under the environment of some of the issues we have had such as racial profiling and a number of different civil liberty issues that have taken place, not only with regard to the police, but also with regard to other different types of services provided by public institutions, which are paid for by all.

One of the concerns raised by the Conservatives was the cost of this, which is legitimate to raise. However, it is rather unfortunate that it has been a discussion point in this. It is to the embarrassment and shame of the government. It should have put this to rest immediately.

When we consider the cost in terms of human death related to this and the mere fact of the gross amounts of profit that the government gets from alcohol sales and consumption, and now of drug consumption, it is nothing short of shameful for the Liberals to come into this debate and not do that appropriately by taking care of those costs and ending that right away. If not, I know as a former councillor and many others also know that they will offload these issues onto an inappropriate tax base to deal with them.

For a law created from a federal standpoint, there should be no debate whatsoever about those costs. We should be getting on with it given the fact that we have such human tragedy associated with this, but we are debating whether it costs $20 a swab or 2¢ a breathalyzer. It is absolutely shameful that we would change laws and have that debate when the government is receiving significant revenue from current sales of alcohol and other types of prohibited substances, and now drug sales. It is absolutely shameful. It is a black mark on the government for taking this process forward, and it becomes a distraction of what is so important, which is the change to our society with this new drug being legalized in our country. It is extremely unfortunate.

The Liberals always have money for their friends. They always have money for their pet projects. They always have money for the shiny objects they find to chase after, but they never have money when it really counts. It is a scapegoat to have the provinces or the municipalities to have to pick up the slack. They are are clear that it is okay; it is all right. I would tell the councillors, the mayors, the provincial representatives, and the premiers that it is all on them, because the decision rests right here. The buck stops right here in terms of the potential from revenue source and the amount of money that is already capitalized by the federal government's taxation of those products that are currently legal that have some conditions on them.

We have serious issues to deal with. For example, what are the levels of drug influence? Then we have a positive in this bill, which I like, which is making the penalties for drinking and driving under the influence of alcohol stronger. It is interesting because, given the severity of alcohol and drinking and driving under the influence, the Liberals have only just matched other transportation-related death issues. They did not choose to take it to a higher level. They did not choose to do anything else with it. They chose to put it in line where it should have been from day one.

Gone are the days, and they should have never existed, when we passively allowed being under the influence. It was “Oh, it was just a few drinks and it was just an occasion.” No, the serious consequences of that should have always been the case. There was a cultural shift, just like we are going to have a cultural shift with this.

With that, we have to look at the consultations that have taken place. What I worry about and why I talked about the levels and the cost related to this is that it relates to regulations being in place, not legislation, to allow unelected people to set even the lowest and the highest level of bars for the testing, the failing of the testing, and the consequences of the testing. Why would we kick the buck there? I have no idea. It does not make any sense in terms of responsibility.

I represent a border community, and the consultation elements have not been there. The Minister of Public Safety has no answers for consultation with the United States, for example. They have not consulted with the municipalities. For example, if a truck driver happens to be around people who are smoking marijuana and gets it on his or her clothes and in the cab, what is going to be the cost of crossing the border and having the detection in the United States go off?

What is the cost for just-in-time delivery trucks for the auto sector? What is the cost for agricultural trucks? What is the cost of putting all that on our roads to create delays of other goods and services?

There is no answer, which is rather unfortunate because it was all ready to be done, had they simply asked.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in many ways, I disagree with many of the statements the member has put on the record.

First and foremost, the government has been deeply engaged on this discussion, not only in the House of Commons but in every region of the country. Whether it has been the minister responsible or the parliamentary secretary, they have done their homework. It is not just a collective group of individuals in this chamber who are given the entire responsibility of making a change of this nature.

There is a great deal of consultation that has taken place with different stakeholders, such as provincial and municipal governments, law enforcement agencies, and first responders.

I am a bit confused about the NDP's position on this issue. It seems to me that this particular member does not support the general direction our communities want us to go. Could the member tell us, from his perspective, what the NDP's position is on this legislation?