Health Committee on Sept. 15th, 2017

[Jodie Emery]

Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We appreciate your contribution.

Now we're going to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for 10 minutes. I'm not sure, are you going to divide the time or is one....

Mr. Karsten.

[Bill Karsten, Second Vice-President, Federation of Canadian Municipalities]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for having us here today. Certainly, we also want to thank you for the important work that you and your committee are doing.

As we know, Mr. Chair, we are here today to discuss the legislative and regulatory realities of legalizing recreational cannabis in this country because there's no doubt you will agree this needs to roll out safely and effectively for all Canadians. However, there's absolutely nothing automatic about this. This will require strong coordination across all orders of government and the role of local governments, I believe, is critical.

FCM's national board met this week in Wood Buffalo, Alberta, and trust me when I say that Bill C-45 loomed high on the agenda. Further to that meeting, I have clear recommendations to share with you today. I will share a little of the 10 minutes, but before I do that, I would like to introduce to you FCM's chief executive officer, Brock Carlton, and I'd like to pass the next few minutes over to him. Brock.

[Brock Carlton, Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities]

Thanks very much, Bill.

As you may know, FCM's 2,000 member municipalities represent 90% of Canadians in every region, province, and territory, big cities, rural towns, northern and remote areas. Our communities are where people live, work, and raise their families. Often when federal plans move forward, this is where the rubber hits the road.

Clearly, it is in our communities that cannabis will be sold and consumed. As a result, municipal governments will be at the forefront of regulation when it comes into effect across Canada. FCM members are already your eyes and ears. We know how the regulation of cannabis, both medicinal and illegal, is applied in a market that is evolving rapidly. We know how change can improve or disrupt cities and communities across Canada. Canadians need some local expertise to help shape the regime relating to recreational cannabis.

Locally, implementing this new regime will be a monumental task, one that is heavily dependent on future action of the federal, provincial and territorial governments. This is another good reason to ensure that the municipalities will participate in this process and will therefore know what is expected of them.

In my 20-plus years at FCM, I've seen it time and again. When the federal government systematically engages with local governments, Canadians win. It's true for infrastructure, economic growth, public safety, and it will be true for recreational cannabis. It's important to understand that FCM is ready and a willing partner in moving forward safely and effectively.

I now would like to turn it back to Vice-President Karsten to talk about our specific recommendations.

[Bill Karsten]

Thank you, Brock.

Committee members, the fact is that passing Bill C-45 will trigger an extensive implementation process across all orders of government, and I'd like to place emphasis on what our member from Alberta said, “all orders of government”. Municipalities will have to adapt local bylaws, rules, and programs as a direct result for things like zoning, land use, business licensing, enforcement, and much more. But much of this work will stem from regulatory frameworks that federal, provincial, and territorial governments still have to design and build.

FCM is pleased and proud that we have published a legalization primer for our members from coast to coast to coast, and a fuller guideline and guidebook is being initiated and is on its way to our members. These tools will help our municipalities from coast to coast to coast get moving on issues that they can address immediately and build work plans for the remainder. But for the work plans to succeed, municipalities need clarity and engagement on a whole range of various issues.

Our first recommendation is that the federal government coordinate with all orders of government to develop its regulatory framework for Bill C-45. We believe the key to meeting a July 2018 launch timeline safely and effectively—again I emphasize safely and effectively—will be concurrent legislative, regulatory, and bylaw development by all orders of government. We'll inch forward locally, based on what we see our federal, provincial, and territorial partners doing. Those partners still have important decisions to make in areas such as minimum age for consumption and what kind of retail distribution model to use.

There is also much uncertainty in the area of shared responsibility for shared impact that I would like to share with you. It's a short list of things like the personal cultivation issue, workplace health and safety issues, public education, nuisance issues, municipal zoning, municipal authority to zone in cases where federal production facilities may exist, and actually others that we haven't mentioned in the list here today.

The federal government has formalized its consultation with the provinces and territories through a working group. We understand that, and that is a great first step. However, FCM would welcome sustained municipal engagement with this group to align the needs of all governments.

As part of this coordination, our second recommendation to you, sir, and to your committee, is to prioritize decision points that prevent local governments from moving forward with implementation work. To prioritize those decision points is critical to us safely and effectively moving this forward.

There are areas where decisions at the federal, provincial, or territorial levels will drive the local response, such as provincial retail distribution models, rules around personal cultivation, as I've mentioned, first nation and municipal boundary overlaps, which has been raised by some of our members, the authority to prohibit cannabis use and sales where applicable, and municipal options if cannabis becomes legal federally without provincial or territorial laws and regulations in place.

We believe the federal government should proactively engage with all orders of government in the coming months to ensure roles and responsibilities are very clearly defined.

Our third recommendation is for federal funding to defray start-up costs for local implementation. There is absolutely no doubt that there is an expectation that municipalities will be on the front lines of enforcing issues, such as local zoning, density bylaws, things like rules around minimum age of purchase, personal cultivation, issues like possession limits, smoking restrictions, and public nuisance complaints that are bound to happen. Also, as alluded to earlier in the other presentation, there are safety concerns related to the building code. We believe these are appropriate roles for municipalities, and municipalities alone. However, growing into them will definitely impose immediate costs. Municipalities generally simply don't have the fiscal flexibility to invest what's needed under the required timeline.

I'm pleased to point out that one of your committee members is in fact a former councillor in a municipality and that other members of Parliament have also served in that capacity.

The federal task force acknowledged that implementation will require new capacity. I would urge federal leadership to ensure all governments grow this capacity before legislation comes into force, before cannabis revenues start flowing. I will point out that we were pleased to see that the government did announce funding this week for training.

Our fourth recommendation is for a smart revenue-sharing model that includes all orders of government. The administration and enforcement will impose ongoing costs on local governments. We are looking at additional staff time, resources for training, for public health, for licensing, administration, for bylaws, etc. There's a lot more we could add, obviously. We are equally as passionate about our points and our information as other speakers, so our final recommendation is to ensure that slower than hoped cannabis revenues don't jeopardize the regime's safety and effectiveness. That is our final recommendation.

A primary objective of the cannabis act is to deter criminal activity. As experts say, the way to starve the black market is to keep the price of legal cannabis low. For this reason, the parliamentary budget officer warned that revenue from cannabis sales may start out slow, small, between $356 million and $959 million per year, but local governments, regardless of what that number is, will still face significant administrative and enforcement costs. We therefore need to know that federal support will be available if cannabis revenues take time to catch up.

Mr. Chair, we can summarize our recommendations in two ideas: the government should engage municipalities in building its regulatory frameworks and revenue models, and any cannabis regime sustainability depends on equipping local governments with the tools they need to administer and enforce it out of the gate and long term.

We're proud that the municipal sector has a track record of delivering local solutions to national challenges. We look forward to working with the federal government throughout the progression of the cannabis act. We thank you for your time, and we would also be happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you for your presentation and all your points of view.

We'll now go to questions for a seven-minute round, and we'll start with Dr. Eyolfson.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you all for coming.

I commend the FCM and the AUMA for their work on this. Quite frankly, I'm happy to see that both your organizations had the foresight to be thinking of this beforehand and for coming here to talk to us and to give us input on how this needs to be done. This is in contrast to the provinces, which have reported in the press that they will have trouble meeting our timeline. We invited all of them. All but Saskatchewan declined to appear here. As the only one that showed up, Saskatchewan said it wasn't a priority for them at all, and it really wouldn't be doing anything on this except for the fact that we have a timeline on them that they have to deal with.

In contrast to what we've seen in the way of input from the provinces, I thank you for your foresight in thinking about this beforehand and coming here today.

As for the costs, I was going to quote some of the figures, but you have already talked about what we have committed to help with law enforcement and training. We do understand that there's going to be costs to this borne by law enforcement, provinces, and municipalities. That is why we've committed...and I keep having to look at these numbers because I cannot commit them to memory. It's $274 million for law enforcement and border efforts, and another $161 million for the training of front-line officers in recognizing impaired driving. We know that this is going to stretch your resources.

There will be other costs as well. Right now, as the system goes, we have people who are being arrested and charged, and in the courts. We know that's expensive. We know that's costing a lot of money.

I'll start with you, Ms. Holmes. Would you not agree that that money in the system is going to be saved? Is that not going to be a substantial savings to our system, when we're no longer arresting people and charging them with simple possession?

[Lisa Holmes]

To be honest, I don't see myself as an expert in the number of cases that would be before a criminal court in Alberta, so I can't say whether or not there would be a significant cost. On the concern that we have, we have addressed that we think there will be costs when it comes to enforcement in regard to training and equipment, but beyond that, there will be additional costs as well. For example, smaller municipalities have completely different capacities for absorbing these types of legislative changes than larger cities have. We're going to need training even for municipal councillors on how to create the bylaws they're going to have to put in place for this to happen. There are costs beyond enforcement. That being said, I would anticipate there would be savings, but I can't tell you what the amount would be.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Certainly.

Federation of Canadian Municipalities, what are your thoughts on that?

[Bill Karsten]

Our position is that legalization simply will not reduce the workload of our local police services. In fact, with the different issues coming forward, the workload will expand. The work hasn't yet been done on breaking down what savings there might be. Overall, we believe there will be significant costs associated with enforcing all the new rules on impaired driving, personal cultivation, possession limits, providing cannabis to minors, those types of issues. At the end of the day, we believe there will be significant cost increases.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Are you saying it's going to increase the workload despite the fact that officers are not going to be arresting people for simple possession?

[Bill Karsten]

Yes, we truly believe that, based on the other issues that will compound their workload.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

What would increase their workload to the point that it would more than counterbalance the savings from not arresting people for possession?

[Bill Karsten]

We have given considerable thought to that, certainly, on the impaired driving issue and the testing that needs to be done. When it comes to capital costs, equipment may need to be bought. We recognize that the federal government has contributed some money, and that's appreciated, but we don't believe that's going to cover all those costs.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

That's understandable.

Let's talk about impaired driving. We know that impaired driving due to cannabis is an issue right now.

[Jodie Emery]

When you're finished, I would like to add some information about impaired driving.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Okay, but I want to finish this line of questioning first.

We know impaired driving is an issue and we know it's out there. Right now we don't have the tools to deal with it, despite the fact that we know it's widespread. We don't even quite know the extent of it. Would it not be an advantage to your law enforcement officials and to your municipalities that we are introducing a way to deal with a problem we haven't been equipped to deal with up to now?

[Lisa Holmes]

The way that I look at it when it comes to impaired driving, yes, we do have an issue with it now, but right now, the average person considers that cannabis is illegal. When it's legalized, the public education campaign in regard to impaired driving is going to be key, because there will be an increase, no question. A concern that we have is that we are not confident that there is going to be technology in place on July 1 that our local police detachments will be able to use to deal with this.

I'll give you an example on the increase in workload from what I have been told by RCMP officials in Alberta. This is an example of how it would impact Morinville. If a community peace officer who is able to enforce traffic law pulled over someone suspected of being impaired by cannabis, they would have to call in the RCMP to take the person to a hospital to get a blood test to determine whether or not the person was impaired, because right now we don't have technology in place to do roadside screening. It would involve an RCMP officer—I only have nine RCMP officers in a municipality of 10,000—who would have to go and sit in the hospital in a different municipality and wait to find out whether or not the person was impaired. That's as far as I understand it.

Therefore, I have significant concerns about the increase in impaired driving that we're going to see, the lack of public education, and the absence of proper enforcement tools.

[Brock Carlton]

You won't see an increase in impaired driving because of cannabis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Time's up, but, Ms. Emery, you wanted to make a comment.

[Jodie Emery]

I understand that driving and cannabis is a major issue and a concern. I'm not advocating impaired driving. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the United States released a report in 2015 called “Drug and Alcohol Crash Risk: A Case-Control Study”, and did not find an increase in crash risk associated with THC. Even more recently, in July 2017, the American Journal of Public Health—as we are here at the health committee—found that changes in motor vehicle crash fatality rates for Washington and Colorado were not statistically different from those in similar states without recreational marijuana legalization. This is a recent study, so please do look this up.

I'm not encouraging impaired driving, but the vast majority of cannabis consumers are not driving impaired. Their judgment is not impaired as with alcohol. With alcohol, you think you can drive and you know you can't. With cannabis, you know when you can't and you won't drive. We also have to consider the hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana patients in this country who are unable to drive, contribute, or work if they don't use cannabis. If you criminalize those who drive under the influence of cannabis, you're going to criminalize every patient and poor medical user across this country.

What we're also finding is that this targeted harassment, as we've admitted, would require taking someone to a hospital, using a needle, and drawing their blood against their will when they don't get to give consent, and for what: to prove that they've consumed cannabis, or to prove that they're impaired? Impairment is proven by performance, whether you're driving on pharmaceutical drugs with a label that says not to operate heavy machinery or vehicles while using those pills, whether you're driving angry because you had a fight, or whether you're driving and texting. Texting has proven to increase crashes. We know it, and it happened immediately. We could immediately say that cellphones and texting create distracted driving and create increased crashes on the road. It's demonstrable. It's proven.

With cannabis, you can't prove it, and that's why the police and law enforcement are falling all over themselves trying to figure out how to find a test and how to set a blood limit. As an official endorser of Washington state's Initiative 502 campaign, I was part of the legalization, along with my husband's prosecutor—so you can find common ground with people who worked against you before—but they admitted that they only had a blood level for cannabis because having that would encourage the public to support the initiative.

What we have to acknowledge is that decades of prohibition and misinformation generated by the government and fear about driving with cannabis are actually discouraging people from finding out the truth about cannabis.

As I said, the American Journal of Public Health studied this extensively in 2017, as did the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2015. Cannabis is not a crisis for the roads. Police should be focusing on alcohol and truly dangerous drugs.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Ms. Gladu.

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

Thank you to our witnesses.

Of course, that's contrary to testimony we heard from Washington where impaired drug driving increased from 8% to 17% when it was legalized. Colorado saw a 32% increase. There was an increase overall in the U.S. in fatalities due to drug driving.

However, my question is for Ms. Holmes.

I thought you very nicely pointed out the difficulty in the rushing of this legislation that is happening. With only 288 days left before the government wants to legalize marijuana, we have to finish updating Bill C-45. Then the provinces have to come with their legislation that chooses what they're going to do in the areas that we've given flexibility on, and then municipalities have to decide how they're going to implement that, all without any funding in all the areas that you've talked about.

The first and most important thing that we heard was that public education about the hazards of impaired drug driving has to get to parents and youth, as well as to society. How much public education has the federal government provided to your municipality, and how much funding for this initiative have they provided?

[Lisa Holmes]

At this point, specifically to the Town of Morinville, we have not received public education funds or any sort of tools. That being said, I know AUMA has been working hard at developing tool kits, and so has the FCM, in order to support municipalities in these areas, as we feel it is a local issue as much as it is a federal one.

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

Thank you.

My question is for Bill Karsten with respect to home grow ops.

We heard testimony that there's a lot of concern with home grow ops. They are 24 times more likely to have fires. There are issues with electricity stealing and mould. One issue that was raised was that of property owners in Ontario or Quebec who would not be able to prevent somebody who was renting from them from growing, smoking, or consuming cannabis on their premises. Is this a similar concern to the ones you were indicating?