Health Committee on Sept. 12th, 2017

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

We will advocate that we absolutely need public messaging. The lesson we learned from Colorado and Washington state was that you need to start now. We needed to start a year ago, quite frankly. There are some misconceptions out there about youth and drug-impaired driving and the dangers. Many haven't seen the same risks they see with alcohol.

In regard to how much money we need, I can't specifically answer that question because we still don't know what we don't know on some sides of the legislation. I can say that we absolutely need to invest in a very robust, continuous program of educating not only the youth but also parents, teachers, and the public about the dangers of youth consumption and the dangers imposed by marijuana consumption.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Your time is up. Sorry.

Mr. Ayoub.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to ask you some questions about the current situation. You work in the field. So you know what is happening, in the streets, in the schools, and with young people. Are young people using at the moment? I assume the answer is yes, but is that the reality? In your opinion, Mr. Barnum, is cannabis being used by young people at the moment?

[D/Commr Rick Barnum]

Yes.

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

Do we have enough resources? Are we dealing with this problem adequately at the moment?

[D/Commr Rick Barnum]

Are you speaking about there being enough staff specifically from an enforcement perspective, or...?

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

Any kind of solution. Do you feel that you have the tools to address the problem right now?

[D/Commr Rick Barnum]

No, I think we could always use more people to work with the youth in our communities to make sure they understand about the harmful impacts of any type of drugs.

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

What I want to get to is that this is an ongoing situation. We can always do better and improve. Crime is always a factor; it is never the same, it goes up and down, and you have to adjust to it.

Most people who work in this industry say that the current situation is not working. For 100 years, we have been operating in the same way, but, in our modern world, we see that our young people are the greatest users of marijuana in the OECD countries. So we have to change our way of doing things.

If I understand your remarks correctly, we have to seize the opportunity to do better. But you are saying that we have some challenges to address in order to be ready. My sense is that we can never be 100% ready. At the moment, we are not ready to manage the current situation properly. You can always improve, you can always have more employees, you can always do more.

I would like to know if you keep statistics on crimes that are directly linked to cannabis, such as impaired driving or possession. Do you have figures like those you provide for drinking and driving?

Each time I ask that question to members of police forces, they have more statistics on drinking and driving than they have on cannabis. Do you have specific statistics for cannabis that compare to those for drinking and driving? Do you have statistics of that kind?

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

We don't have that statistic with us. Certainly in regard in drunk driving or impaired driving we are preparing a response on behalf of the CACP for Bill C-46 in which we'll be able to drill down further into some of those statistics to get a better understanding of that.

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

I would really like you to send the committee the statistics you have at the moment, so that we can compare before and after.

In terms of preparation, I am a little perplexed. You say to wait until the legislation is passed. It will include some special features, and I understand that you have to wait for those in order to make sure that you have a precise viewpoint. That said, I would like to know what steps you are taking in the meantime in order to get ready.

Are you doing nothing as you wait for the legislation to be passed, or are you making preparations in the meantime?

After all, we have been talking for more than two years about adopting legislation to legalize cannabis in Canada. I am sure that you are working on it. I would have liked you to tell us about it, and if you are not able to give me an answer in the 45 seconds that remain, could you send us a report on your state of preparations and on the way you propose to achieve the goal?

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

Do you want to take that from your committee perspective?

[D/Chief Mark Chatterbok]

Sure.

From the perspective of the Saskatoon Police Service, we are having conversations in terms of how we will respond in the future, but it's true that until we actually see the legislation and the regulations it's difficult to know exactly what we're going to be faced with.

I mentioned in my opening remarks the fear of the unknown and not knowing to a great degree how our calls for service will increase, and so on. Part of the challenge will be that once the legislation is implemented and we start to track our calls for service, and so on, in the community, we won't be able to react to that until we have a good sense of what we're faced with.

We're also engaged with the province at a fairly high level at this point. We're going to have to do more consultation with the province as to what they have in mind in terms of provincial regulations as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Your time is up.

Now we'll go to Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to follow up on my last question. We realize that Canadian youth do use cannabis too much. We're saying we're going to go from one system that the government says isn't working, though statistics may suggest otherwise, but I wonder if you, as police officers, could actually explain the tools in your tool box today.

If you pull a youth over who is 17 years old, if you smell marijuana in the car, if you notice that they have marijuana in the car, because it's illegal you don't have to prove that they're impaired. You don't have to worry about swabbing their cheek to see if it has been consumed. You don't have to worry about a blood test. You have tools in your box to actually address that youth. Perhaps I think the goal would be to put them into a treatment program or talk to their parents.

How is it going to be different now for you, pulling over a young person under the new legislation, or theoretical new legislation? Are you going to have the same tools to address that? Is it going to be worse? Is it going to be better? What would you think?

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

Do you want to take that?

[D/Commr Rick Barnum]

Sure. I think we have the potential, and the CACP has advocated for this and we've been a very clear voice for a long time, about for a ticketing scheme for young offenders and for young people. It will be nice to have the opportunity to provide a ticket, if that exists. That's one thing that would be an extra tool for us, so to speak, if you want to call it a tool.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Does it need to be legalized for that, or could you do it a different way under today's framework with decriminalization or something such as that?

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

It really does vary from province to province. I think it's well documented that British Columbia has a far more tolerant approach in policing marijuana. Typically, a lot of times, quite frankly, it's taken away from the youth and that's the end of it.

Certainly we want to ensure that youth cannot possess. We want to ensure that we have the authorities under certainly a provincial statute to take away the marijuana from a youth. That is our primary concern.

We also think it's important that there be a system, as my colleague stated, in regard to having an opportunity to ticket and perhaps educate. We've advocated that a monetary fine probably is not the best approach, certainly for first-time offenders, but rather, looking at something such as an online app or an online program where youth have to take a mandatory course and be educated on the dangers to persons under the age of 25.

We do need tools in order to effectively deal with it. Currently, some of our systems are just taking it away, and that is not appropriate, because I don't think the lessons are being learned and we continue to see high youth consumption. Really, what we want to see through an education program, such as we've seen with tobacco and through rigorous campaigns on tobacco, is a drop in youth consumption and consumption overall through these very active campaigns. I think we can do the same if we invest some money and if we invest the time and resources into that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I agree with you, but we'll both maybe agree that none of that is in this bill of the federal government. It's going to be left to the provinces and territories.

The next question is for Deputy Commissioner Barnum.

I'd like to find out what you'd like to see with regard to stronger security screening on those producing and distributing. We recently had Health Canada.... There was a big recall for pesticides and fungicides.

It's interesting, even with the medical marijuana system, it appears that the government is not putting in the resources to properly inspect these facilities. Moving forward with legalized marijuana and recreational marijuana, the government isn't putting enough money into inspectors and overseeing the facilities today.

What would you like to see the federal government do with opening up the market like this?

[D/Commr Rick Barnum]

I'll perhaps share that answer with my colleague, Deputy Chief Carrique.

Firstly, I think I mentioned before, it's important to have a layered process. It's not as simple as getting a licence to grow by just having your name on a certificate, having somebody do a criminal record check and saying there's no criminal record, or, it's old, so they can have a licence. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it's important to understand that it needs to be a layered and thorough approach, with background checks.

Again, for what we have in Ontario, I routinely permit our officers to travel around the world to check on individuals who are claiming companies from out of the country to be part of the casino system. They travel around the world to do these background checks, to make sure that what this business is supposed to be in this community, in this country...that it actually is there and they do have the staff who are working there. We do that type of regulation background check.

I think that type of approach is vital to making sure that the money that goes into these facilities to produce a legal product is legitimate and it's going back into the community legitimately.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Do you have confidence, though, that if the government can't deal with the medical system that they would do it with a recreational one?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Your time is up.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Okay, I thought I could get one more question in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Well you're very good at that. We're going to give you another chance.