Health Committee on Sept. 15th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The time is up.

Now we go to His Worship Mayor Ayoub.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to ask the question in French.

In fact, I am a former mayor, and I salute my colleagues. You never forget your roots.

In my region, 45% of youths 15 to 24 years of age use cannabis. I am in Quebec, in the northern suburb of Montreal. The average in Quebec is 35% for that same age range.

Leadership means having goals, achieving them and being able to deal with urgent situations. I'm not talking about the benefits and dangers of marijuana. There is a complete array. There is a whole range of topics.

However, many people have told us that marijuana use is dangerous for youth under the age of 25. That is exactly why regulation on legalization is coming. The goal is to reduce as much as possible the use of marijuana with unknown content among young people, as a matter of urgency. What's more, organized crime provides the bulk of it.

I would like to hear what my fellow mayors have to say. When citizens and parents come to see you and tell you that half their families are at risk of smoking or using marijuana and they have no way to control it, do you feel a sense of urgency? I would like to hear your opinion on this.

That is for anyone who wants to can answer.

Madam Holmes.

[Lisa Holmes]

I agree with you and I have to say that it doesn't take someone coming to talk to me about that. It doesn't require a parent. I'm the mother of a 13-year-old boy, so I am very clearly aware of what the concerns are. That's why I'm imploring you to get it right, because I know that, yes, there are people in circumstances, and we've heard from the Emerys about some of the people that are going through struggles in regard to the current legislation and how this is being done. That being said, we need to make sure we're not rushing into something that's going to create more problems, that's going to cause issues with people feeling comfortable in their communities. It's not just the users. It's also the people who live there who may be renting a home to someone who's going to be growing marijuana, or who will be living in a circumstance where they feel they're just not comfortable around people who are using it, and that is the case.

I do agree that there is a level of urgency, but I also believe there is time for us to be able to have conversations about what we all need in this process.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Karsten, do you have an answer for that, any concerns on that?

[Bill Karsten]

Yes. Thank you very much.

I think Ms. Holmes expressed my sentiments well. In my case, it's more about getting it right for my three granddaughters, because anything I try to do at the municipal level, I frame on the basis of this being all about the future.

We at FCM still are in a position, and we've said this from the outset, that the legalization of cannabis is in fact a federal decision, and as you know, it is something that was committed to in 2015. We in the municipal sector feel that we are still committed to ensuring it is implemented, as long as we can be involved and it is done in a safe and effective way.

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

Many people mentioned it, when this was the case in Colorado and in Washington State.

Do you think that the legalization of marijuana will mean that, overnight, the majority of drivers on the road will have marijuana in their systems? Are the majority of citizens going to start growing marijuana in their apartments? Will most people start using marijuana all of a sudden because it's legal?

I don't know everything, but I'm personally convinced this won't happen. Alcohol, cigarettes and many other products are legal and have negative effects. People know about the dangers associated with their use. So I don't think it will be the end of the world the day that marijuana becomes legal or that everything will suddenly crumble.

We need infrastructure. That's what we're doing, and we want to consult as many people as possible. Your government is holding consultations like never before in the past 10 years. We want to make positive progress and ensure the safety of our children, in particular. That's what I can add.

I have no other questions, Mr. Chair.

[Jodie Emery]

I would like to address this.

With teenage use, the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2017 reported that teens do not experience an increase in psychotic symptoms with cannabis alone. It happens that when they use tobacco or alcohol along with cannabis, that can aggravate the symptoms. It's a very small percentage of people, already predisposed, who might be aggravated.

The British Association of Psychopharmacology in 2016 said there's no IQ loss in teenagers, that even long-term chronic users of marijuana do not suffer any decrease in IQ. We can see over history the increase in use of marijuana, but schizophrenia rates do not go up, IQ rates do not go down, and as I said, the American Psychological Association in 2015 said that even chronic teenage users don't have any further health problems later on in life.

I'd like to touch on growing in the home, since this touches municipalities. The reason people are growing in houses is that it's valuable. It's risk and reward. The more you prohibit or over-regulate something, the more people are going to try to get around that, or it will increase the value.

With growing in houses, however, in February of last year, Federal Court Justice Michael Phelan analyzed growing inside the home and found that, despite the testimony of Len Garis and other law enforcement officials, cannabis growing in the home can be done safely and in most cases is done safely. That's why he offered a federal injunction to provide permission to patients to grow cannabis in their home.

When I came into this building, I noted that there's a giant green wall with plants on it. That's a hydroponic system. It's an indoor growing operation right here in this very building, but it's done safely. The vast majority of consumers, growers, and even sellers of cannabis do not want mouldy bud. They do not want bad conditions in the home. The worst cases you find with grow ops that do damage and destruction are not among patients and advocates, but profiteers.

The only reason those profiteers are even involved in the growing and selling of cannabis is that when government over-regulates it and criminalizes it, it increases the penalties and it increases the reward. Just make it extremely cheap and extremely available. Organized crime is not going out there selling you sugar, because it's available everywhere, and if we had cannabis just as available, you would take away the profit motive from organized crime and they'd have to find some other job to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Karsten.

[Bill Karsten]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to respond.

Mr. Ayoub, I appreciate the question and I concur. That is pretty much evidenced by what the parliamentary budget officer suggests. I don't think everyone's just going to go into a car and smoke marijuana. I agree with you, sir.

The budget officer warns, and it was alluded to earlier, that revenues from cannabis sales may start out small. I want to suggest, however, as I alluded to, that when it comes to local governments, we will still face the significant administration and enforcement costs.

I'd like to present to you, in 30 seconds or less, the fact that in Colorado, municipal governments collected sales tax directly on cannabis. These are the kinds of conversations we need to have. It's just not right to roll it out, then come back to the municipalities and tell them that this is the way it's going to be, without our being involved.

They received an additional 15% of the state's marijuana tax cash fund. There were other examples, such as Washington state. The point is, the costs to municipalities, regardless of how the sales or retail end evolves, are going to be relatively large up front. That's what we want to have the conversation about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks.

[Brock Carlton]

May I just add one thought?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Yes.

[Brock Carlton]

We have to understand that we're talking about two things when we talk about costs. We're talking about the start-up costs, all the work that needs to be done to prepare for the arrival of this legislation, the policing, bylaws, etc., and then there are the ongoing administrative costs, which will continue in perpetuity as the law is implemented.

We have to make sure we're not losing sight of those two different kinds of costs that are going to be incurred by the municipalities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much. We have to move along now to Ms. Gladu.

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

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to be sharing my time with Dr. Carrie.

I'm going to follow up on the comments from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities with respect to the smart revenue-sharing model. I agree that if municipalities have to bear a lot of the costs of putting this system in place, there should be something in Bill C-45 that would actually make it clear how the revenue is going to be split.

Do you have a recommendation? Would you like to see a one-third, one-third, one-third among municipal, provincial, and federal? What would you recommend?

[Bill Karsten]

May I go first?

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

Sure.

[Bill Karsten]

At this point, we've not had enough conversations on the potential taxation models to prefer a specific model. I think you know where I'm going with this, that even though there's not a specific model in mind, we are asking that support be provided to municipalities for the ongoing costs of legalization through some sort of revenue-sharing model. Determining how to tax and what form this revenue-sharing takes is one of the many issues that, quite frankly, does require further discussion. This is why FCM continues to call on the federal government, through those consultations that we have, to engage all orders of government. You've heard that message certainly from Ms. Holmes now and from us, that implementation cannot proceed locally without further direction from not only federal, provincial, and territorial partners, but also the municipalities.

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

Yes, it doesn't sound as if it's going to happen in 288 days.

The other thing I wanted to follow up on was you made a comment about how some municipalities may want to prohibit cannabis sales. I just wanted to make you aware that we had testimony from Justice that said if it's legalized at the federal level, that will make it impossible for any municipality to ban it in their municipality, because that would be a violation of everybody's rights and it wouldn't survive a court challenge. I just wanted to put that out for you.

I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Carrie at this point.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have some questions with regard to the border issue and trade. We are undergoing NAFTA negotiations with our biggest trading partner, the Americans, but I've heard a concern that we're out of sync with our greatest trading partner. I was wondering if you thought that it should be made a priority, that we should be explaining what we're doing in this regard because right now, if the Americans just ask you, they can stop you from going into the U.S. and this trade issue is all about jobs and the economy. I was wondering if that affects the municipalities.

Also, Mr. Emery, I think you're quite aware that very high-profile Canadians who have admitted to smoking marijuana have no problem going back and forth to the U.S. How does that make you feel?

[Marc Emery]

That's unusual. If a border official does a Google search and finds that you've got any relationship with marijuana, they're likely to bar you from entering, at least at that time, and for up to 30 days and possibly permanently. There are lots of examples of Canadians now permanently barred. The former mayor of Grand Forks, Brian Taylor, found himself barred from going back there. He used to go over there to buy milk and eggs, amazingly, and I don't know why that's reasonable, but it's so close to Grand Forks that he used to go. Now he's barred from doing so because he's had a relationship with marijuana; he's advocated as mayor.

The border states of Washington, Vermont, Maine, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota all have medical marijuana or legalization regimes. The entire border with the exception of Idaho and Montana, and Pennsylvania, which is not so much on a border but across the lake, are the only three states left that don't have some kind of medical or legal regime going on in the United States, so this argument that we're going to have a trade problem is diminished. What we're going to have is a border problem.

One of the things they haven't thought of with the Ontario monopoly is that every employee who works for the Ontario cannabis control board is going to be barred from entering the United States. So as long as part of their employment they're willing to admit they're never going to the United States again, then that's fine. I'm sure they'll get employees. We in the free market already acknowledge this, that we're not going to be able to travel to the United States if we have a relationship with cannabis that's in any way public. I suspect every government employee who wants to work for a marijuana shop might want to consider if they have family in the United States or if they ever go to the United States because they're going to be barred.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mayor Holmes, do you think this should be a priority issue discussed maybe between our Prime Minister and the American President about how this will affect our border? I'm hearing from Canadians who are worried. A lot of snowbirds who own property in the United States go down south and they're worried about getting stopped when it's legal, if there's a swab or a random test that the Americans are doing. If they have a cookie or something at a party, even inadvertently, this could be a big issue. Are there any concerns municipally?

[Lisa Holmes]

It's not an area that I have any knowledge of, aside from watching the TV show Border Security. I think Mr. Karsten might have more.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Are there any other comments?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The time is up.

We have to go to—