Thank you.
To the justice minister, Bill C-45 retains a criminalized approach to cannabis in many respects, including possession limits, cultivation restrictions, and selling offences. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police told this committee:
We know that in 2016, I believe, there were approximately 16,000 or 17,000 charges for simple possession of marijuana—
There were actually more than that.
—but we think those will be replaced with ticketing. They'll be replaced with nuisance calls. They will be replaced if, unfortunately, we do go forward with personal grows, with us having to manage those grow operations, which, of course, will be a very time-consuming and onerous process for our officers, who will then have to seize the plants and take them back to a police department or a facility to store them
This is not to mention the new enforcement provisions around cannabis-impaired driving. He continued:
We don't see this...as being any sort of time-saving for our staff.
Now, one of the purposes of the bill in clause 7 is to reduce the burden on the criminal justice system. Given that law enforcement agencies believe the proposed framework will not reduce enforcement activities, and given that your government recently announced plans to spend an additional $274 million on cannabis enforcement, how exactly will Bill C-45 reduce the burden on the criminal justice system?