Health Committee on Sept. 15th, 2017

[Bill Karsten]

Personal cultivation is an area that could have many new implications for municipalities across the country and those need to be properly understood. At this point, it's not clear how this aspect of the legislation will be managed, but we foresee municipalities having to respond to health and safety and nuisance types of concerns as well, as you alluded to.

The message I'd like to go back to is much like the other question. I don't necessarily think there should be a debate about impaired driving or determining all these things at the committee level. As an organization of municipalities from coast to coast I believe we need to send the message that we need to be involved with the federal government in the regulatory framework. FCM's proud to send out a primer to all our members and a guidebook or guideline will be coming out. Understand we deal on a national level with the federal government now; our staff has had several meetings.

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

The other question I have has to do with treatment. We've heard a lot about how, especially with youth, there's a 30% greater increase in schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, depression, and there are folks who are addicted to cannabis and we need treatment for that.

How well are the municipalities across Canada set up to address the increase that's expected?

[Bill Karsten]

Obviously, it's a very important question.

Unfortunately, we are not the sector experts on that particular issue. I would hope that each province is looking to their public health folks and their health departments on how to best deal with that. We really don't have the expertise here.

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

Ms. Holmes, I have the same question for you.

[Lisa Holmes]

As it stands today, the municipalities in Alberta are not responsible in essence for that type of issue, because it is health related. That being said, every issue is a local issue and everything will lie at our feet when it comes to the end. We will have to work through our FCSS, our family community support services departments, to find some sort of tools to be able to work through this. We'll just be offering to the province the same thing we're offering to you. We will work with them on anything they need to make sure they have the regulations in place for those things to be addressed.

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

Okay.

I have one more municipal question and then I'm going to turn to the Emerys. Do you municipalities feel that you have enough flexibility under Bill C-45 to choose where marijuana can be sold and consumed?

[Bill Karsten]

That's one of the issues we have looked at, but not understanding what the retail model is going to be from province to province, this is where it becomes somewhat important. Truthfully, I don't like to sound like a worn-out recording, but we need to have the information. We need to be involved. As I'm a councillor in Halifax, yes, we have started some of that work, but some of that work we're doing is quite costly, because we're doing work we don't know if we're going to utilize or not.

It's crucially important for me to continue that theme that we can be ready. We've said that from the outset, that we believe as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that we can be ready as willing and able partners—

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

Okay. I'm running out of time. Can I get an answer from Ms. Holmes on this one, on the flexibility?

[Lisa Holmes]

Sure. As it stands right now, as Bill was saying, we don't know the details around what we will be able to do. We're hoping, working with the province, that we will be able to establish the municipality with some autonomy with regard to where the facilities will be located, where production facilities will go.

There is also the question of municipalities that do not want to have either production or distribution facilities, so we're asking for that.

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

This question is for the Emerys.

If Bill C-45 is passed in its current form, will you abide by this new law or continue in civil disobedience?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Give a very short answer.

[Jodie Emery]

I'm choosing to follow the law as much as I can, because I only engaged in opening dispensaries in April last year and that's what I'm currently charged with. I potentially face life in prison as I sit here before you, which would certainly cost the taxpayers a lot more.

I want to add that with municipalities, we should be looking at allowing the storefronts to operate similarly to caffeine, which is an addictive stimulant drug that I can get for free right in the back of the room, or like alcohol if I want to open a bar or a restaurant to provide alcohol or a craft brew. The municipal regulations in licensing shouldn't be that restrictive or prohibitive or even costly if done right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

I want to start by saying that since the Le Dain commission in the early 1970s, the issue of legalization of cannabis has been on the public policy agenda for decades. I have no illusions that we wouldn't be sitting here today talking about a form of what I'm going to call decriminalization and not legalization of cannabis without the work of many people who have sacrificed a lot.

Mr. and Ms. Emery, I can't think of any two people who are more important to hear from on this legislation than you. I know you've dedicated your lives to this subject, and at great personal cost and sacrifice. I want to just make that comment.

Ms. Emery, I want to start with you about the broad scheme of the bill. You have described this bill as, “This is not legalization. It's Prohibition 2.0...”. Can you please explain that?

[Jodie Emery]

There are three reasons Canadians came around to support legalization. Number one is that we shouldn't criminalize our fellow Canadians who are otherwise law-abiding. They should not be banned from travelling to the United States, lose their job for failing a drug test, or have their kids taken away by the Children's Aid Society. None of that criminalization or harm should happen to peaceful, non-violent Canadians.

Number two, this industry already exists. It's worth billions of dollars. The Fraser Institute and many others have analyzed it and said that cannabis should be legal because it already exists. It's already being grown, sold, shared, and consumed. It's in every movie and TV show. It's everywhere. It's normalized, except with the government. We should allow the existing industry to come out of the shadows and into the light.

The third reason to legalize is that law enforcement has spent billions of our tax dollars on going after people for pot. I'd much prefer that money go toward health care, education, social housing, anything, or allowing our law enforcement to focus on serious crimes that have victims.

Bill C-45, as presented, will not offer amnesty or pardons to people who have been convicted. It will not allow people like my husband and me to be free from a criminal record. It will not allow the existing industry to transition into legality. In fact, it introduces tougher new penalties and prohibits those who have been victimized by prohibition from being allowed to transition. We're being locked out from participating and locked up for being unable to participate.

Although the third reason for marijuana legalization is law enforcement spending, on Friday we saw an announcement of a quarter of a billion dollars of additional tax money going toward marijuana law enforcement. Legalization is supposed to mean you no longer have to enforce a law against it. We know that marijuana law enforcement is extremely costly, and many police offers don't even want to enforce the law, which is why they often don't charge some people but do charge others.

As Mr. Bill Blair, who is not with us right now, has admitted, marijuana prohibition and law enforcement target people of colour, indigenous groups, the poor, and the marginalized. This bill will not legalize anything we've been fighting for.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

The other witnesses have pointed out that the bill still contains a criminalized model, where if you have more than 30 grams in your possession in a public place, you can be subject to criminal sanction. If you have more than four plants over 100 centimetres, you can be arrested and serve time for selling and other kinds of offences.

Mr. Emery, Justin Trudeau, our Prime Minister—on “getting it right”—is quoted as saying, “We have to create an entire system that controls and regulates marijuana, and that will include medical marijuana and properly licensed dispensaries.”

Are we getting it right?

[Marc Emery]

Goodness, no. It's all wrong. In fact, to answer your colleague's question about whether I will continue to break the law, absolutely. Breaking the law is the only way that Cannabis Culture has been able to get any kind of improvement in its status over the last 20 years. For example, Parliament banned all books and magazines about marijuana in 1987. That law lasted seven years, until some colleagues and I started distributing books and magazines in front of police stations. We finally got charged for giving out pamphlets to high school students. We went to Justice Ellen MacDonald in the Superior Court and she struck that down.

Then I started distributing pamphlets encouraging everybody to sell bongs and pipes, which were all illegal. Now we have a thriving industry across Canada. I started selling seeds, which were and probably still are illegal, and I sold millions of them to Americans and Canadians so we could bypass this government. I thought the only way to really make pot legal was if marijuana was everywhere and everybody had it, and then the government would be helpless, which is really why we're here, because we won. We've accomplished that. Marijuana is everywhere. People are growing it; there are stores opening, and we don't care if we go to jail or if you charge us. We're going to do our thing because we love cannabis and we're in the cannabis culture.

I'm going to continue to break these laws because they're terrible. This law criminalizes everybody who it's supposed to be legalizing, and then enriches the government monopolies that are being proposed. We have wealthy stock market production companies that don't have any relationship to cannabis but just raise money on the stock market. They somehow get hand in glove with the Liberal government and are now operating and selling marijuana even though people I know who have been doing it 10, 20, or 30 years are not going to be offered any such invitation.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm curious about your opinion on this. We've already heard that Ontario, and I think you mentioned Quebec, and possibly New Brunswick are moving to a government monopoly system that will clearly freeze out dispensaries. I'm wondering what you think about that. Will it—

[Marc Emery]

That won't be supportable. I will encourage everybody to boycott the government stores. We will physically try to stop people from going in. We're going to advise them that they're traitors if they go to the government shops, because these are the people who have oppressed us for 50 years.

Are you going to give your money to the very enemy who has beaten us, killed our animals when they've raided us, rounded up our kids, taken away our cat, taken away our plants, and taken away our livelihood? Are you kidding me?

We can never let the government be the profiteers of marijuana after all the years that they've abused us, exploited us, and persecuted us. It's pure sadism. This cannabis law is pure sadism. The one you're proposing and the one we've had for 50 years is just punishing Canadians for no valid reason.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'll move to production, because the task force said:

Decisions on production, distribution and retail have clear implications for businesses hoping to enter the cannabis industry, including how to ensure a diversity of participants. It is apparent that there is significant interest and speculation about the potential for new revenues.... Supply chain management...has significant implications for consumers and communities. Price, product quality and accessibility can all be affected, depending upon what route the Government chooses to take.

They recommended using “licensing and production controls to encourage a diverse, competitive market that also includes small producers”.

Do you see Bill C-45 accomplishing that recommendation?

[Marc Emery]

Bill C-45 accomplishes no objective whatsoever that is desirable. The thing is, it's staring us all in the face. If we want the price to plummet to the point that money is not even a factor with marijuana; if we want all Canadians to be treated fairly before the law; if we want to restore civil liberties; if we want to take away all the police power we have given the police for 30 or 40 years to wiretap, to surveil, to pose as drug dealers, to do all this sort of stuff that's costing billions of dollars, then just take cannabis out of the schedule. Just remove it from the schedule, tell everybody that otherwise you have to be law-abiding, be peaceful, pay your taxes, pay your employees well, and obey all municipal regulations.

Basically just treat it like any other normal industry. After all, it hasn't killed anybody for 50 years. There isn't any other industry in this country that's like that. They all put out pollution that kills, or the cars that kill, or the foods that kill, or their drugs that kill, or the tobacco that kills, or the alcohol that kills. Heck, everything is killing Canadians except cannabis, and you want to treat it as though it's plutonium. It's insane.

[Jodie Emery]

I'd like to add that one of the major issues of Bill C-45 is that the federal government controls the production.

You've all heard of B.C. Bud. Cannabis has been growing all across this country for a very long time, and the provinces deserve and should have the power and the ability to license their own production agents themselves. If the provinces have to wait on the federal government to supply cannabis, the provincial government stores are not going to have any product on the shelves.

We saw Nevada declare a state of emergency, asking for more pot growers to come forward because they sold out in one week. We're seeing it happen all over the world. You need a lot of supply; you need it everywhere. You need to allow municipalities to license their own craft growers, as they do craft breweries. You need to allow provinces to do it, and you need to allow the federal government to let it happen.

If the production is controlled federally, distribution provincially, storefronts and policing municipally, of course you have a big disaster coming, but—

[Marc Emery]

Only government could think of that plan. The marketplace would look at it in horror. It will never work.

[Jodie Emery]

Also, I'd like to add that if you do allow the provinces the control over setting up pot monopolies, as you could call them, instead of allowing Canadian citizens, innovators, entrepreneurs, small business owners to create jobs, create tax revenue, and give back to the community, you're going to force every taxpayer to subsidize a multi-hundred-million-dollar government bureaucracy that the government itself admits they will not be able to make money from. They're going to lose money.

Again, they don't even know what the product is. Why can they not allow the people who have grown and sold and loved this plant to come forward and come out of the shadows? Why do you continue to criminalize us?

[Marc Emery]

What have you had against us for 50 years, is the big thing.