Thank you very much for being here today and for your presentation.
Just as an opening comment, we're at the midway point of our week of studying the bill. At the end of the day, the committee will have to go through a line and clause-by-clause review of the bill.
There were three principal objectives, in my mind, for why the legislation was brought forward. One was to get these drugs out of the hands of our youth, or at least reduce their access to it. The second was to reduce the function and role of the black market and organized crime, and to at least reduce their access to this space and the revenues from it. The third was a public health agenda, which was to ensure that the production of cannabis for consumption was done by licensed facilities so that we understand the safety of the product and the toxicity or the dosage of the product as it's being prepared.
Most of the presentations we've heard seem to be in agreement with the legislation, but they are in disagreement about how the balancing of those three objectives takes place, particularly the first one and the second one, so I want to tease it out a bit more.
For instance, Dr. Porath, I didn't hear it clearly today, but I think that in the past you've had a recommendation that a standardized minimum pricing to reduce consumption would be a recommended strategy, a sort of national minimum pricing, right? If that's not the case, I apologize, but I understand that's something you guys have said. You get to the point, then, where organized crime knows exactly the lowest price their competitors will go to, so they can do a price thing.
We've heard from other witnesses that if the licensed market doesn't produce the variation in drugs, including in even some of the most distilled or high-potency products, youth will seek them out. Again, it leaves that window open for the black market to offer alternatives and to showcase with packaging and whatnot.
Could you speak a bit to that balance? I understand that from your perspective a particular health focus can lead us down one path, but then it opens up this other competitive window of black market access, which we're also trying to deal with. It's the duality of the act. Can you talk about your views and how you would see those better balanced?