Evidence of meeting #65 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cannabis.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Mike Serr  Deputy Chief Constable, Drug Advisory Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Rick Barnum  Deputy Commissioner, Investigation and Organized Crime, Ontario Provincial Police
Mark Chatterbok  Deputy Chief of Operations, Saskatoon Police Service
Thomas Carrique  Deputy Chief, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Neil Boyd  Professor of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
Christian Leuprecht  Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
Paul-Matthieu Grondin  President of the Quebec bar, Barreau du Québec
Pascal Lévesque  President, Criminal Law Committee, Barreau du Québec
Luc Hervé Thibaudeau  President, Consumer Protection Committee, Barreau du Québec
Anne London-Weinstein  Former Director, Criminal Lawyers' Association
Sam Kamin  Professor of Marijuana Law and Policy, University of Denver, As an Individual
Michael Hartman  Executive Director, Colorado Department of Revenue
Marc-Boris St-Maurice  Regional Director, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Abigail Sampson  Regional Coordinator, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Rick Garza  Director, Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board
Marco Vasquez  Retired Police Chief, Town of Erie, Colorado Police Department, As an Individual
Andrew Freedman  Director, Freedman and Koski Inc.
Kristi Weeks  Government Relations Director, Washington State Department of Health
Kevin Sabet  President, Smart Approaches to Marijuana

Noon

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

That's it. Time's up.

Noon

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My thanks also to the witnesses.

My question goes to Mr. Levesque and Ms. London-Weinstein. I will ask my questions in English.

In order to address this issue of making sure that children are not criminalized by this legislation, and to clarify what police officers should do with adults in terms of their ability to ticket or to charge, one suggestion is to make the possession amount for young children zero but have any amount of possession ticketed if they're found with something. This is to send the message that we don't want you to have it, but if you have it we're not going to criminalize it. With adults, it is to make between 30 grams and 50 grams a ticketed offence and everything above 50 grams an actual charge. To add to that, if violence factors in the 30-gram to 50-gram range, that would bump it up to a charge as well.

Would that take care of the concerns you have raised?

Noon

Pascal Levesque

I agree. Our position is, from five grams to 30 grams, to not have criminal consequences attached to it. To reduce it to zero, that is up to Parliament to decide, but there's an English expression, “There are many ways to skin a cat”. I think what's important is that we want, from the perspective of public safety and health, to channel their habits so that they are not criminalized, yet not send the message that it's okay, necessarily. There are many ways that Parliament could choose to attain that goal.

Noon

Former Director, Criminal Lawyers' Association

Anne London-Weinstein

Those are excellent points that Mr. Levesque raises, but my concern about the ticketing provision was also echoed by him earlier. I want to know how those records are going to be kept before I endorse that position and whether they're going to affect.... Say the family is going to Florida and the young person has gotten a ticket, is that going to stop them at the border? It's that sort of thing.

Noon

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Currently there is no plan in place. It's illegal federally in the U.S. People are being asked at the border if they have smoked pot or not, and if they say, yes, then they're not allowed to go in. That's not been addressed. It's concerning, especially with only 292 days remaining before this legislation goes into effect.

At the beginning, one point of this legislation was to try to offload the many possession charges that were clogging up the courts, because that's resulting in murder trials and sex offender trials going away, but this legislation has a lot of provision for trafficking charges. Do you feel that you'll replace the overloading of possession charges with an overloading of trafficking charges?

12:05 p.m.

Prof. Neil Boyd

I guess the best answer is “it depends”. I would hope not. I would think that part of the rationale for this is that we're putting in place provincial systems of distribution. As I said earlier, I'm surprised to see possession of illicit cannabis as a crime, and I'm not sure how that is going to work, how it's going to be defined over time, but also production of illicit cannabis. We're allowing people to grow up to four plants, but we're going to spend a lot of time enforcing laws against.... I see this as transitional.

Some people have said this is posturing. It's meant to allay fears about this change in legislation. I have to say I'm one of those people who hopes that's the case. I want to see this go smoothly. At the same time, where I live, for example, I don't know what we're going to do about dispensaries that have failed to comply with any regulation in the city of Vancouver. How are they going to be shut down, given that we want at least some form of regulation in place? Are we going to have to use scarce police resources to do so? Will we be able to use civil injunctions and remedies of other kinds? It's unclear.

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

I have a question for my professor in political science down in Brisbane.

You talked about contraband, and we're making the analogy with the tobacco industry. I'm in Ontario, and my understanding is—and you can correct me if I'm wrong—that somewhere between 40% and 60% of the tobacco being sold in Ontario is actually being sold by our first nations partners, and that's because that's part of their treaty rights. In the area of cannabis, is that an opportunity for them to enter the business in a similar way?

12:05 p.m.

Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual

Dr. Christian Leuprecht

I shall not speak, I think, on behalf of the aboriginal population and their views with regard to cannabis, but certainly, I think, it is not just the individuals on reserves who avail themselves of the opportunity not to impose taxation to create an incentive to purchase the product on reserve. There's also considerable effort to exploit some reserve jurisdictions by both legal and organized crime entities to manufacture the product and then distribute it from there, so in that sense, those communities become caught in organized crime in a much broader organized crime machine.

Given that organized crime would be happy to profit through whatever means it can through the existing pipelines, it would be difficult to imagine that there would not be a concerted effort to try to ascertain not whether but what the best means are to maximize profit by that product. It would not surprise me if the vulnerability of some first nations would be exploited by what is a prime target for organized crime the way it currently is.

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Thank you.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Time's up.

Mr. Ayoub.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here today to talk about this extremely important subject. As my colleague said, I am going to use the occasion to listen to some lawyers’ opinions on points of law. I am wondering about the minimum legal age.

In the relations between federal, provincial and territorial governments, there is some collegiality when the time comes to prepare legislation. The minimum age for voting is 18. Our society recognizes that, when a person is 18 years old, that person is an adult and able to make his or her own decisions, on electing a government, anyway. However, when the decision is whether to take medication, a drug, that will probably become legal, the minimum legal age is going to vary from province to province.

What is the legal view on that? Is it possible that this flexibility that the provinces have will be challenged in court, and eventually argued before the Supreme Court?

12:10 p.m.

President, Criminal Law Committee, Barreau du Québec

Pascal Lévesque

The Quebec bar will not be expressing an opinion on the minimum age. We are assuming that it will be 18. However, if that age goes up or down, there is the risk, as you say, that someone will challenge it on the basis of age discrimination.

The federal government and the provinces each have jurisdiction in determining a minimum age. So some kind of collaboration is necessary, if it is possible.

I know that some data suggests that we must be careful about age, but that does not automatically mean that the data absolutely proves a specific minimum age. The further we depart from the minimum age of 18, the more we increase—

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

We open a door.

12:10 p.m.

President, Criminal Law Committee, Barreau du Québec

Pascal Lévesque

We increase the risk of challenges a little. Whether that means that the legislation would not survive a constitutional debate is another question.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

I only have five minutes, so forgive me for reining you in a little.

Let us make a comparison between cannabis and alcohol in terms of quantity. There is a legal age at which alcohol can be consumed, but there is no limit set on the quantity of alcohol that can be purchased. I am not talking about the health concerns because information exists. I am talking rather about the legal concerns. Wouldn't it be simpler to not specify quantity?

12:10 p.m.

President, Criminal Law Committee, Barreau du Québec

Pascal Lévesque

Perhaps it would be simpler, but I feel that the objective is to educate the public and make young people aware.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

We have education about alcohol; we see it every day. Look at the budgets: they have increased from $9 million to $36 million.

Would it not be better to focus on educating parents about their children? Some medications must not be given to children under the age of 12, but parents have those medications and can get them in pharmacies without a prescription. In smaller quantities, of course.

When we are designing legislation and we want to go into great detail, I sometimes have the impression that the meaning ends up getting lost. I understand that we want to provide protection, but sometimes it is clearer to keep things simple in order to allow the legislation to be applied better.

A little earlier, some police officers were wondering how they were going to be able to manage the quantities. Enforcing a law on the cannabis we want to legalize raises all kinds of obstacles that are philosophical rather than technical. Legally, would it not be simpler?

September 12th, 2017 / 12:10 p.m.

President, Criminal Law Committee, Barreau du Québec

Pascal Lévesque

As I said earlier, it is one of the possibilities that exist in law.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

Instead of talking about quantities in detail, could the Quebec bar not recommend something simpler? As you said, you are not political, and that’s fine, but since the intention is to legalize cannabis, do you not have a recommendation along those lines?

12:10 p.m.

President of the Quebec bar, Barreau du Québec

Paul-Matthieu Grondin

Let me quickly answer that precise question. The number of grams is still a political question. You are talking about simplifying things, but, as you said, prevention is extremely important. In the Quebec bar’s view, one thing is clear: young people should not be punished more severely than adults for the same behaviour.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

We agree on that. I agree with you.

Thank you.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

We go back to Mr. Davies.

12:10 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Thank you, Chair.

Professor Boyd, you're a professor of criminology. Is that correct?

12:10 p.m.

Prof. Neil Boyd

Yes.

12:10 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

A previous panel of police officers were conjecturing that, were we to bring in the four-plant limit and allow home cultivation, there would be a number of deviant—I use that in a sociological sense—and criminal consequences of that. They thought that there would be diversion of cannabis to the black market and that there would be more home break-ins. They predicted increased youth access.

I'm wondering, given the similar experience in history with alcohol, if you share those concerns. Are those necessarily predictable results of moving to home cultivation?