Health Committee on Sept. 12th, 2017

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

To address your question, we are aware that the RCMP does fairly rigorous inspections or checks on licensed producers. One of our main concerns with the medical regime under the MMAR is the designated and personal production licences, which do not have near the same level of rigour. We do know that organized crime, without any doubt, is involved in both of those uses. That is our primary concern and why we're asking—

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

These are individuals who are given a permit to grow their own—

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

Correct.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

—marijuana for medical purposes, and you have a concern. Just to be very clear, the licensed producers go through quite rigorous screening. I wanted to be clear on that.

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

Yes.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Is this legislation better than the status quo, particularly in mitigating, or at least reducing some of the access that organized crime would have to this work? Right now, it is a 100% illegal supply. It's all black market, other than the medical marijuana. I think you mentioned this, but could you say it again? Do you see any reduction in the access of organized crime to some of this market with this legislation?

[D/Chief Thomas Carrique]

There's definitely an opportunity here to impact the organized crime element related to cannabis. As we mentioned, it's a $9-billion industry. If the cannabis act is successful and if it does result in a decrease of profit in the black market for organized crime, what we need to do as law enforcement officials is to turn our minds to where this decrease in profit.... Where do they turn their attention? Do they turn their attention to other illicit drugs that present greater dangers to our community, and make them more available to our youth?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Sure, they're going to be there. There is no question.

[D/Chief Thomas Carrique]

That is something that is a policing profession—

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I believe the federal government has just made an infusion of financial support to help with criminal investigations. Is that correct?

[D/Chief Thomas Carrique]

We did hear the announcement. We acknowledge that the financial announcement is going to assist with our efforts. It will be, as I stated, incumbent on us to make sure that we are thinking one step ahead of organized crime. If we do reduce this market for them, where do they turn their attention to recover those profits?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I understand.

On your capacity to be prepared for this legislation, I think we need to distinguish pretty clearly what is federal, and what is provincial, territorial, and municipal in this.

At the federal level, it's pretty clear right now. If you're under the age of 18 and you're holding less than five grams, there's no criminal charge. If you're over the age of 18 and you're holding under 30 grams, there's no criminal charge. The residential growing rules are clear as well.

At a federal level, in terms of criminal charges, it's pretty clear, is it not? It's really at the provincial and territorial level, in terms of how the ticketing and provincial applications will apply that the uncertainly arises for you. Assuming the bill is passed and goes through the legislature, you could prepare for the federal law today, could you not?

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

Assuming that there are no changes, there is a fair bit of clarity in this act that we can certainly rely on. That being said, the process for ticketing is yet to be determined. How that process will be—

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Which is provincial, right?

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

There's also the federal...or the implications for a person who has between 30 and 50 grams. We still need to work with the Department of Justice and Health Canada on the application of the different laws that would fall under this act.

We have some ideas, but we certainly can't develop a full and robust training package until we really have the full picture of how this will roll out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The time is up.

Okay, Ms. Gladu. Are you going to share your time?

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

I'm going to share my time with Mr. Carrie.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Five minutes goes very fast.

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

I know.

Is it any problem to you that the government, federally, has sort of downloaded most of this to the provinces to let them all figure out their own rules? You may have 13 different systems across the country. I would ask Mr. Serr.

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

We certainly have advocated that the more uniformity we can have across the country, the more it would be advantageous for us, and not only from a training perspective. Certainly, the provinces are deciding on age. This could be a complication. Some provinces having a younger age restriction could create cannabis tourism, potentially.

We would like to see that there's more of a national scope to this.

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

Very good.

One of the unintended consequences, or things that I found disturbing from Colorado was that in suicides among adolescents of 10 to 19 years of age, 16% of them were found to have marijuana in their systems.

Do you have any data on what the situation is in Canada, in terms of suicide, which is an epidemic among our young people? How many of them contain marijuana at death?

[D/Chief Mike Serr]

No, we don't have any specific information regarding youth suicides and the finding of THC in their systems.

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

Okay.

I will turn it over to Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

I just wanted to put something on the record regarding this narrative about alcohol prohibition and marijuana prohibition.

The CMA was here yesterday. They said it's not the same, especially for youth and especially for brain development. My uncle, who's a police officer, asked me why we would want to legalize another substance that's going to give us problems just because we've legalized one substance, which you have rightly said is the number one cause of death in driving.

I think the status quo today is that if you pull someone over, you can take them off the road, and immediately, you can pull them off the road. Public safety is maintained. You don't need to do these swabs. You don't need to do the blood tests. You don't have to prove in court that they've been impaired.

My question is about the officers on the ground who have to take on this duty now. I was wondering if you could explain the difference between an officer who is trained in the field of sobriety testing to detect drug impairment, and a drug recognition evaluator, whom I believe is now recognized as an expert.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Chair, could I raise a point of order?