This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
Ralph Goodale Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
This enactment amends the Criminal Records Act to, among other things, allow persons who have been convicted under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Narcotic Control Act and the National Defence Act only of simple possession of cannabis offences committed before October 17, 2018 to apply for a record suspension without being subject to the period required by the Criminal Records Act for other offences or to the fee that is otherwise payable in applying for a suspension.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Madam Speaker, I thank my neighbour to the north in Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston for the opportunity to say that of course, a Conservative government would make no effort to recriminalize cannabis.
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague to the south, who has been representing very ably the riding that was, until very recently and for a long time, represented by my dear friend and colleague Gord Brown. Those were big shoes to fill. I know I am expressing a view that is shared by many in his constituency when I say that my colleague is doing a very admirable job, and my hat is off to him for that.
This is my second opportunity to address Bill C-93 and my third to address the issue of pardons for the formerly criminal act of simple possession of cannabis. I was also able to address the private member's bill, Bill C-415, which was moved in the name of our colleague from Victoria.
I want to focus my remarks primarily on the contrast between the expungement model in Bill C-415 and the record suspension or pardon model in Bill C-93. Looking at this bill and the comments raised in committee persuades me of the truth of a remark that was made in committee by a criminal defence lawyer, Solomon Friedman, who said:
I should first note that Bill C-93 is better than nothing. But better than nothing is a mighty low bar for our Parliament. You can do better. You must do better. Instead, I would urge a scheme of expungement along the lines already provided for in the Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act.
That act was, of course, passed by this Parliament at the instigation of the current government, which revealed that expungement is, at least in principle, possible for the former offence of simple possession of cannabis.
Better than nothing turns out to be the equivalent, in practice, of very little at all. Parole Board officials testifying before the committee studying this bill estimated that out of the 250,000 to 500,000 Canadians with convictions for cannabis possession, only 10,000 would apply for a record suspension or expedited pardon.
I will make two comments. First, I am not sure how much precision or accuracy we can expect in the prediction of 10,000 from people who said that the number of records out there is somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000. That is a substantial margin of error. Additionally, if it is 10,000, why so few? The answer, in part, is the incredibly bureaucratic nature of the process under Bill C-93. When looking at Bill C-93, one gets the impression that the government looked at all available options for dealing with this issue and selected the most bureaucratic one it could find.
Let me quote from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, a supporter of this bill, and my point will be made. In promotion of the bill, she said:
[W]hy not just do it like some California municipalities and erase all the records with the press of a button? We do have an electronic police database of criminal records here in Canada, however, that database does not contain enough information to allow for a proactive amnesty....
[The] Parole Board should explore options for moving towards a more digitized system capable of receiving applications electronically, something particularly important for Canadians in rural areas.
That system would be in the future, not under this bill. That is a reference to the problems of getting access to broadband Internet in rural areas.
The parliamentary secretary then said:
In the meantime, the Parole Board is taking a number of steps to simplify the application process in other ways. It is simplifying its website and application form. It is creating a dedicated, toll-free phone number and an email address to help people with their applications.
In other words, none of this stuff is available, and it will take some time before that happens. She continued:
It is developing a community outreach strategy with a particular focus on the communities most [likely to be] affected by the criminalization of cannabis to make sure that people know about this new expedited process and how to access it...
We will need an advertising campaign.
This is going to be slow and complicated. By contrast, what would have happened under an expungement system? Expungement is nothing the government ever considered. Indeed, it seems not to have even thought of this possibility. Under expungement, we would simply say that the government would act as if any record that stated that a person had been convicted for possession of cannabis did not actually exist. If we found it, we simply would say there was nothing there.
This is done by the courts all the time. Any correspondence between lawyers done on a without prejudice basis, whether or not the words “without prejudice” are put at the front of the various pieces of correspondence, is automatically disregarded by a court. They have no ability to present it as evidence in a proceeding.
Similarly, we could do the same thing with records. This would overcome the problem of having different records kept in different ways, some on paper and some electronically, in different jurisdictions. They would simply have no existence in law. Because it is such a common conviction, when one was accessed, we would understand that it simply did not exist for the purpose of being used by any law enforcement official. That is how we could introduce expungement. This would eliminate all the bureaucracy, all the application fees that are necessary, which would still exist under this proposal, all the time, all the work and all the money that would have to be expended. There is a cost estimate, which I find hard to believe, attached to this bill. There would be zero cost with an expungement system.
In all fairness, the bill is better now than it was before it went to committee and came back with amendments. This is thanks, in part, to an amendment proposed by the member for Toronto—Danforth.
I will again read from the parliamentary secretary's words to give members an idea of what was done. She stated:
thanks to an amendment at committee from the member for Toronto—Danforth, people will be able to apply [for a pardon] even if they have outstanding fines associated with their cannabis possession conviction.
Due to an amendment we voted on at report stage...people whose only sentence was a fine will not be required to submit court documents as part of their application.
Finding these court documents was part of the supposedly costless, expedited process until this amendment was made.
On the other hand, a further suggested amendment, put forward by the Conservatives, was accepted at committee and then subsequently rejected by the government.
I will quote from our Conservative critic on this issue, who stated, “We proposed a measure to allow applicants whose records were destroyed to swear an affidavit explaining their situation and certifying that they are eligible”, which of course creates some paperwork but is less complicated than what we are left with. He went on to say, “This would have made the process even more fair. The Liberals agreed to this amendment in committee but changed their minds at report stage and decided to reject it.”
That would have helped relieve some of the bureaucracy. There are certain costs that continue to exist, and this prompted one person to quip, I think very appropriately, that the bill should not have been entitled an act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis, but rather, an act to provide for lower-cost, somewhat expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis.
In the remaining minute and a half of my time, I want to deal with another important issue. Getting a pardon essentially equals getting forgiveness. People have done something wrong, we forgive them, and we move on. Expungement is a way of saying that what they did was not wrong in the first place. There are some offences for which this might not be true, even if we eliminated them retrospectively. I think, in the case of cannabis possession, it is clear that our ancestors, those who came before us, did not make it legal because they felt it was morally wrong to ingest or use marijuana. They thought it was the best way to protect people from their own unwise instincts. It was a wrong move. It did not work. It ruined a lot of lives, but those people were not put in prison because they had done something that was evil or wrong or would harm the rest of society. Therefore, removing this is entirely appropriate. We need not save expungement, as the government has proposed, only for the righting of historical wrongs based on laws that are now prohibited under the charter. I suggest that, in this case, it is also appropriate, and I urge all of us to consider, as we look forward to the future, the expungement model, perhaps in a second piece of legislation in the 43rd Parliament.
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I know that he spoke briefly about this, but I would like to go back to the issue of making the process automatic.
When the bill was in committee, we heard that giving it a title that implies the process would cost nothing is misleading. My colleague briefly mentioned this at the end of his speech.
In reality, not only is there a cost associated with obtaining the documents required to apply, but these costs also vary widely from one region to the next. Furthermore, people living far from major urban centres may have an even harder time obtaining these documents.
I also want to add that the Conservatives proposed an amendment, which I supported. In Canada, we have a serious problem with storing and maintaining criminal records, so this amendment would have allowed people whose documents have been lost or destroyed to swear an oath and receive a sworn statement that they could use to apply. This amendment was rejected by the Liberals at report stage.
I would like to know what my colleague has to say about this. Does he believe that we should be a bit more flexible and make the process automatic?
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Madam Speaker, first of all, I thought the amendment was a good one. The decision to remove it I will not say was unwise, but I think it was inexplicable. I really do not know the reason for removing it.
My colleague is entirely right that it is harder for people in some parts of the country to get access to these kinds of records. It is harder for people who do not have ready access to a lawyer or the ability to pay for a lawyer or the services of a lawyer's office to hunt through court records. Citizens are not easily able to do this on their own.
The same people who were victimized too much initially, those who are poorer, those who are suffering from mental illness, those who are less able to manoeuver their way through the byzantine legal system, will have the same problem at this level. I think we will discover that the same groups that faced too many arrests and convictions will face too small an ability to right these wrongs, relative to the population as a whole.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Madam Speaker, the member has an interesting background on this particular issue. He was not always on side with his Conservative Party when Stephen Harper was the prime minister. I respect that of the member opposite.
Listening to the Conservatives speak on this particular bill is a little confusing. The NDP members seem to have taken the position that they are not going to be voting for this bill, because they want expungement. If I listen to the Conservatives, some of them stand up and say that it should be expungement as opposed to a pardon. Others stand up and say that the pardon is good. Overall, it looks like the Conservatives are voting for the bill. It is hard thing to tell for sure.
Could the member give a clear indication of the Conservative Party's position on this bill? Do the Conservatives favour it, or are they inclined to vote against it?
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Madam Speaker, I can only speak for my own position. I am in favour of the bill. It is better than nothing, but it is not much better than nothing, in my opinion.
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Madam Speaker, I hold my colleague in great esteem, and I appreciated his speech.
One of the questions I am hearing is, “What is the cost going to be for this?” More importantly, many of these convictions were plea bargained. In other words, a more serious offence was pleaded down, and now these people may have these options available to them, as well as the people who have convictions for simple possession.
Could the member comment on that issue? The government really has to look at this carefully, because no prosecutor would have accepted a plea bargain knowing that it was going to be washed away in the future.
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Madam Speaker, this is an issue on which I disagree with many colleagues in my own party. Some people, no doubt, were convicted because it was part of a plea bargain; others were not. I do not know the percentage. I suspect the majority who faced simple possession charges and were convicted did not plea bargain.
Blackstone, the great author and authority on the common law, said in the 18th century that it was better that 100 guilty men go free than that one innocent man be hanged. Everybody knows this saying. The same principle ought to apply here. It is better that some people be able to get a pardon even though their conviction was the result of a plea bargain, than the alternative, namely that others who had simple possession charges be unable to get a pardon.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia, Housing; the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, Veterans Affairs; the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh, Sport.
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to once again speak to Bill C-93. This bill has a number of flaws and perfectly illustrates why Canadians' trust in the Liberals has been broken. On the eve of the election, the government is settling for half measures that are not even guaranteed to pass.
As the parliamentary secretary said, we oppose this bill. We are not here to give the Liberal government a free pass for measures that very few people will be able to access. For example, I will talk about Bill C-66, which established an expedited procedure for expunging criminal records of LGBTQ community members sentenced for behaviour that is no longer deemed criminal. This objective is commendable and we support it, but an automatic process would have been preferable.
We can look at the numbers for the sake of comparison. When Bill C-93 was in committee, we learned that of the approximately 9,000 people who were eligible for the procedure established under Bill C-66, only seven had applied. In committee, we asked government officials for an explanation, but naturally, they were unable to respond. I would certainly be able to provide some, just as the experts did in committee. I will come back to that.
Meanwhile, the government said that it would advertise through non-traditional means. Is it talking about tweets, Facebook posts or pretty hashtags? I have a hard time believing that these ads will be seen by the right people, who are often in precarious situations. We are talking about vulnerable Canadians, racialized people, indigenous peoples and low-income Canadians. Factually and statistically, these people are the most likely to have a criminal record for simple possession of marijuana.
This is easy to prove. Here in the House, the Prime Minister publicly stated that he had once smoked marijuana recreationally, as did other politicians. There is nothing wrong with that. Black people in Toronto, however, cannot get away with it that easily. They are the most likely to have a criminal record for simple possession of marijuana. This is a serious problem and is one of the reasons we oppose this bill. It is clear that the people who need this process the most are the same ones who will not benefit from it.
I would like to talk a little bit about the study in committee in order to explain why the NDP does not support this bill. First, a criminal lawyer told us that this was the least Parliament could do and that it was better than nothing but that parliamentarians have a duty to do much better than that. I could not agree more.
The NDP's commitment to Parliament involves doing our best to help those who need it most. We do not want to settle for taking a tiny step in the right direction. The lawyer I mentioned, Solomon Friedman, also raised several problems with the record suspension system. Those problems are not an issue in the NDP's approach of expunging criminal records. He mentioned two factors.
The first is good conduct. Those who apply for a criminal record suspension, whether under the process proposed by Bill C-93 or the usual process, must demonstrate that they are being good citizens. For the average Canadian, that means refraining from robbing a bank or murdering someone, for instance, as farfetched as that may sound.
Actually, Mr. Freidman explained that it could include getting a speeding ticket or causing a minor accident with another vehicle by turning onto a one-way street and the police is called in. These actions would be considered bad behaviour. Fortunately, the leader of the Green Party and member for Saanich—Gulf Islands introduced an amendment to fix the problem. We introduced a similar amendment that went even further. I will come back to that in a moment.
The government's amendment appears quite good, but if the government acknowledges this flaw and the distinction between record suspension and expungement, why did it not simply agree to expunge the records from the outset? That was what my colleague from Victoria's bill called for. Incidentally, some Liberal and Conservative members supported it.
There are other differences between the two approaches, but I want to come back to the amendment. The Liberals moved a sub-amendment to the proposed amendment, which then lost an important element that was found in one of my amendments, which was rejected. Simple possession of a reasonable quantity of cannabis, just like its consumption for recreational, medical or other purposes, is now permitted under the law following the passage of Bill C-45 earlier in this Parliament. An individual who obtains a record suspension for simple possession of cannabis could subsequently commit another crime for all sorts of reasons. I am not excusing the crime or stating whether it would be justified. This is a hypothetical situation.
Under Bill C-93, if an individual with a criminal record for simple possession of marijuana has his criminal record suspended and subsequently commits a crime, no matter how minor or insignificant it may be, the record is reinstated. That makes no sense. I do not understand that. If the member for Sherbrooke, the member for Saskatoon West, the member for Courtenay—Alberni, or even I, or anyone else, were in possession of cannabis, that would not be considered unlawful under the act.
An individual can get a record suspension through a government-approved process because the offence they committed is no longer an offence. That individual might go on to commit a crime, perhaps due to being marginalized, as the vast majority of people burdened with the injustice of a criminal record for simple possession of cannabis are. This bill is an attempt to repair that injustice. The individual might be struggling with very difficult circumstances. We do not know all those circumstances.
The government says it wants to help these people, but its new system is flawed. If these people trip up at any point in the future, their criminal record will be reinstated and they will no longer benefit from the Liberals' system.
If their records were expunged, as the NDP and all the committee witnesses except for the minister suggested, the records would no longer exist. No matter what future difficulties people might encounter, that record would be gone for good.
I also want to speak about other vulnerable individuals whom this bill does not help. I want to speak about the issues raised by the Native Women's Association of Canada, which came to committee and said that one of the groups that would benefit the least from this legislation is indigenous women, because of all the barriers that would still exist despite this process.
Earlier, I asked the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston about the fact that, by not making the process automatic and calling it “no-cost”, the government is misleading Canadians who may want to benefit from this process. Why is that? As every witness said in committee, there are sometimes enormous costs associated with obtaining the necessary documents to apply in the first place, especially for the individuals who seek to benefit from this process.
The application no longer has a cost, but people have to pay to get their fingerprints, pay to go to the court to find their old records, if they even still exist, which is something I will come back to in a moment, and they have to pay for any other documents they might need. The costs could be hundreds of dollars, and it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
If people live far away from an urban centre, in a region that is already underserved and where vulnerable Canadians, indigenous people and others are already victims of a system that is fixed against them in many ways, they are even more disadvantaged by those barriers that would remain in place despite this legislation. That is unacceptable.
What could have been done? We proposed an amendment that was unfortunately ruled beyond the scope of the bill, which is interesting. I challenged the chair and the Liberals voted with the chair, which is not surprising, but the explanation that was provided by the law clerk in committee was interesting, when he argued why the amendments were beyond the scope of the bill. He said that all the bill seeks to do is take the existing record suspension process, which everyone agrees is fundamentally unequal, and make it a bit easier in some aspects.
However, by making it automatic, we would get rid of those barriers. It was pointed out to us by the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, the Native Women's Association and others that many of these individuals do not even think they have criminal records anymore because they paid their fines, which is considered time served, and have moved on to other things. They do not even know.
Anyone in this room who has dealt with government, and certainly we have, in our offices, by the very nature of our work, knows that if it is hard enough for those of us within government to deal with the government apparatus and to have the proper knowledge, then certainly it is true for the most vulnerable Canadians.
Even the idea of making the system automatic was a compromise. We initially wanted criminal records to be expunged, but we said we could live with record suspensions. We were not happy, but we wanted the government to at least make the process automatic. It refused. It will not even accept a compromise.
I said earlier that I would come back to the issue of documentation and poor records management in Canada. It is madness. Ask the police about the Canadian police database. Ask about a crime being committed in Ontario and having to search for records in Alberta, Quebec or elsewhere. It is crazy to see how poorly managed these records are. One of the things that needs to be done is a digital upgrade.
The Conservatives proposed an amendment that all committee members supported. If a person could no longer locate documents because they had been destroyed or lost, they could sign a sworn statement explaining the lack of documentation. The Parole Board of Canada would be able to accept this sworn statement, this letter or declaration, so that the person could move forward with the process.
Everyone was happy. It was a step in the right direction. When the bill came back to the House at report stage, the amendment was quashed. The government turned it into an option the board could choose to make available in very specific cases. The amendment might as well not have been adopted, because it will not help anyone.
That brings me to my next point, which is about the most shameful and frustrating part of the whole process. I have been an MP for eight years. I have great respect for the public service and for public servants who work very hard with very little in the way of resources, despite what the general public might think. What I saw during the committee's study of this bill was unbelievable.
When we asked the minister why this process could not be made automatic and why the records could not be expunged, he flat out said that it was too much work. I swear that is what he said, and I invite my colleagues to read his testimony. We heard the same thing from the representatives of the parole board and during clause-by-clause consideration. When I proposed amendments to make things easier for the people this bill is meant to help, the Liberals asked officials to provide a reason for rejecting my amendments. What did they say? They said that they did not have the capacity, that they did not know how they would do that and that it would be too much work.
The government says that better is always possible. It introduced a bill to help people in our society who are caught in a tough situation, but it refuses to accept a better approach, one supported by everyone who testified at committee. It seems it is too much work for the parole board. According to police, civil society and every expert in the legal community, the parole board has been mismanaging records for far too long. It is far from being the best system. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It is unacceptable.
It is even more shameful given that the committee conducted a study. When the minister was appointed, he came in with great fanfare, much like the rest of the government. He said that the government was going to address all of the injustices created by the previous government and all of the injustices in society. To hear him talk, this was going to be the best government in the history of the universe. According to him, there was no need to worry.
Four years later, what is happening? It costs about $650 for a person to have their criminal record suspended. I do not have the exact number in front of me. There are some disadvantages to giving a speech without any notes. People are being asked to pay about $650 to apply for a record suspension. That measure was put in place by the previous government. Some of the wording has been changed. Now, we talk about record suspensions instead of pardons. As the former Conservative government would have said, a criminal can never be pardoned. The minister said that there was a major injustice in the system and that he was going to fix it.
What happened then? Following in the footsteps of several other members, a Liberal member who, I have to believe, had good intentions, hopped on the bandwagon and ordered a committee study. Most people will have only one opportunity in their entire life to introduce a motion or bill in the House. The member called for a study of criminal record suspensions.
I think he could have asked the committee to conduct the study. It would have gladly done it, but let us put that aside. The member's intentions were good. The member for Saint John—Rothesay appeared before the committee and said that an automatic process should be considered for minor crimes, such as simple possession of cannabis.
We did the work and produced a report. The committee presented its report to the House. The government said it would look at it. Incidentally, Public Safety Canada had already commissioned an Ekos survey that found that three-quarters of Canadians supported simplifying the process for applying for a criminal record suspension, because it would allow individuals to reintegrate into society and get a job. Indeed, 95% of people who are granted a pardon or record suspension do not reoffend.
What did the government do? If I were sitting down, I would fall out of my chair. The government presented the same recommendation that had already been made, which would have been a footnote to our study of the bill, based on what the minister said.
It really fuels cynicism when a government says it will do one thing when it comes to power, but then does not do it. One of the government's own members orders a study. The government says it will do it, and then it does not. Then, a month before the House of Commons' last sitting before the election, the same Liberal members say in committee that we did not really have enough time to do the study and that perhaps it should have been done or will be done with the next government.
This is why we oppose Bill C-93. In the justice system and the public safety system, people were far too often penalized for the colour of their skin or the place they lived. We truly want to help these people. We do not want half measures that fuel cynicism.
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Madam Speaker, first of all, as I understand, the direction we are going in is to allow people to apply for pardons at no cost. Cost is an issue I would like the hon. member to reflect on a bit.
For the longest time, police were enforcing cannabis possession, and the only tool they had at their disposal was to charge somebody, who would end up with a criminal record. At some point, the police stopped enforcing it. At the 4/20 events in Vancouver, the police would stand there and watch people use cannabis.
Does the member not think that the process going forward contributes to equity and fairness, to ensure that basically everyone will be treated the same way?
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Madam Speaker, I do not think the bill would contribute to fairness, and this is why. I already mentioned some of this in my speech, but it bears repeating with regard to the member's question.
First, there is a cost. Yes, the Liberals have removed the $600 cost, but they have not removed it for record suspensions at large, even though they promised to do that. As I said, there has been study after study, but it has not been done.
The government said it has removed the cost, but it really has not. Every single witness who came before committee, including lawyers and others in civil society, agreed that the costs are still there. People have to pay to get their records, and get to the courthouse to get them.
Representatives of the Native Women's Association of Canada asked whether we really thought that indigenous women with a record for simple possession of cannabis have the means to make their way to a courthouse in an urban centre, to pay to get the records, if they even still exist, and then take them back home and apply for the process the government is putting forward. They do not. Solomon Friedman, a criminal defence lawyer, said this is true of most of his clients.
In fact, it gets worse than that. If we google “Canada pardon” or “pot pardon”, we get a bunch of Google results for some of the most disgusting and unsavoury people, who are taking advantage of these individuals, charging them thousands of dollars, much like we see in the immigration system. They take advantage of these people and give them bad and erroneous advice, making sure they get strung along at a high cost.
What is going to happen? Will we get a social media campaign from the Parole Board that will fight back against those unsavoury actors? That is not the case. All of the witnesses told us as much.
While I appreciate the hon. member's good intentions, the fact of the matter is that the title of the bill does not reflect the reality of what the bill would do.
Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and especially for his expertise. I also thank him for his outstanding command of his files. I know that he has worked very hard on this.
In his speech, he mentioned that government officials, and even the minister, claimed that providing for an automatic system would be too difficult and too much work. I find it somewhat hard to believe that that was the excuse that the department and the minister himself came up with, considering the billions of dollars they have at their disposal. The Parole Board of Canada may have a hard time managing its workload, but I still believe that the Government of Canada, with its $360-billion annual budget, should have the means to set up an automatic system.
Can my colleague elaborate further on this surprising, absurd answer from the government, namely, that it does not have the means or the capacity to grant automatic pardons? I find that hard to believe.
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
We are paraphrasing what was said. They obviously did not use the words “we can't”, but they made it clear that it was too much work for them and that they did not feel as though they had the capacity to do it. In spite of that, in response to one of my amendments, they said that there were privacy concerns. However, the Parole Board of Canada benefits from Privacy Act exemptions that apply specifically to this type of case. It is important to recognize that, if the political will had been there, this could have been accomplished.
The best example is that of San Francisco. After cannabis was legalized in California, a process similar to the one being offered by our government was proposed. As members can imagine, as in the case of Bill C-66, which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, very few people benefited from this process, particularly because it mainly impacts people in vulnerable situations.
What did they do in San Francisco? They decided to invest in artificial intelligence, a sector in which our governments like to invest, allowing them to sort through records, identify those who are eligible and develop an automatic process for expunging their records.
If a municipal government like that of San Francisco can be innovative, I do not see why the federal government of a G7 country cannot do the same.
Alaina Lockhart LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism
Madam Speaker, I know Liberals have differences of opinion with the NDP on how to proceed to clear people of their criminal records for possession. However, when the head of the campaign for Cannabis Amnesty, who shares a lot of the NDP's views, was asked in committee whether Bill C-93 was a positive step, she said it absolutely was.
We can talk about the differences of opinion in the House, but would the NDP see fit to help the people impacted by existing convictions to get jobs, housing and education, and support us by voting for this bill?