Health Committee on Sept. 19th, 2017

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the ministers for being with us today. I'd like to offer my congratulations to the Minister of Health on her appointment, and I look forward to working with her as well.

My first question will be to the Minister of Health. The task force on cannabis legalization recommended that your government legalize and regulate edibles and concentrates. Here's what the Honourable Anne McLellan said last week when I asked her why the task force made that recommendation:

...it's a growth area in the cannabis marketplace. Obviously, if you're concerned about public health, you want to move people away from smoking.... If it's for medicinal purposes, there are therapies in non-smoking forms...as mentioned in the task force report, the edible market is growing.

If you want to move from the illicit market into a regulated legal market, then you have to offer the quality and choice that the illicit market can provide. It's fair to say that we heard that over and over again from a wide variety of people we talked to. There are public health reasons and public safety reasons why you would want to authorize or allow edibles in various forms.

Minister, given that two of the most important purposes of this bill are to reduce illicit activities and to provide access to a quality-controlled supply of cannabis, which are right in section 7, why did your government ignore this recommendation? In other words, if prohibition doesn't work, as you said, why are you prohibiting edibles?

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

First of all, what I'd like to say is that our government has committed that by July 2018, we will ensure that Canadians have access to dry cannabis, fresh cannabis, and oils. That is the beginning of the work that needs to be done. From there, however, we agree with the task force recommendations, but we'll have to bring in regulations to address the issue of edibles, and that is going to be done in due course.

We recognize that with the experience in the States—they have extensive experience with respect to this—most of their issues and complications were because of the issue of edibles. They weren't properly prepared to deal with them. We want to ensure that we have the proper regulatory framework in place to make sure that we have all the necessary tools to get this right.

When I look at edibles, we can see that there's a wide range of products that could be legalized. If there are hundreds, if not thousands, of products that can be made legal, we have to make sure that we have the right regulatory process to get this done right.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

That is why we're moving with this process.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Sam Kamin, who is a professor at the University of Denver, told the committee, “I think our experience and the American experience is certainly that we have learned how to mitigate those risks.” He pointed to “Resealable packaging, non-transparent packaging, with clear portion sizes and maximum THC per package, markings on the individual pieces”, no marketing to children, etc., as all part of the state of Colorado's experience.

Minister, I'll put it to you once again. Leaving these products wholly unregulated means that the risks of edibles and concentrates remain wholly unmitigated. Why is that better? Why are you content to leave those products to the black market, and as the Minister of Public Safety said, to organized crime, which is probably not selling their products in childproof packages. Why are you content to leave that for another year or so instead of regulating them now, as Colorado has done very successfully?

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

First and foremost, we want to make sure we get this right. As indicated, we are committed to bringing in the regulation that is needed regarding edibles; that is our commitment. However, we want to make sure that we use best practices, and we continue to consult with our neighbours down south. They have told us loud and clear that if they had a choice, they would probably follow Canada's lead right now as opposed to how they did it.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Goodale, to you, about the border. Now, we know—I think we're all parliamentarians—that the United States is a sovereign country, and certainly nobody is asking anybody to tell the Americans what to do. The reality is that come July 1, 2018, if in fact that's the target date set, there will be a new legal reality in this country. We all know that there are stories of Canadians going to the U.S. border and U.S. border guards asking if someone has consumed cannabis, and if the answer is yes, they are routinely denied entry.

Are you working to try to reach an agreement with the Americans that recognizes the new legal reality, or will business people and ordinary Canadians simply have to try their luck when they get to the U.S. border on July 2?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

We're constantly raising with the Americans the reality of the changing legal regime in Canada, one that we believe, on the basis of very compelling argument, will be more effective than the American federal regime in keeping cannabis out of the hands of kids and stopping the flow of illegal money to organized crime. That's an ongoing dialogue and it's one that we will raise at every opportunity to ensure that Canadians are treated fairly.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

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?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

In clause 7 of the bill, yes, one of the purposes is to reduce the burden on the criminal justice system. In the cannabis act we have introduced a series of penalties that run the gamut, from ticketing up to serious indictable offences. I recognize what you're saying that the the police officers have said. We are committed in terms of bringing in the cannabis act to ensure—as Minister Goodale spoke about—that we provide law enforcement officers with all of the necessary tools they will require, from drug-impaired driving to other measures, to ensure they can do their jobs appropriately.

We are going to continue to work with our counterparts in the provinces and territories to provide them with the support they need as well as continue to work with municipal governments. I think the spectrum from ticketing up to the realities of the more serious offences will contribute to a reduction in the use of court time, particularly where this involves younger people, where it involves the less-serious charges of between 30 and 50 grams of cannabis possession. There are alternatives then to going through the regular criminal justice system.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

It doesn't sound as if it will reduce the burden.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Your time is up, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

We go to Dr. Eyolfson.

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

Thank you, Ministers, for coming.

Minister Goodale, I take to heart particularly what you say about how we need to address the criminal gang problem. I practised emergency medicine in Winnipeg for almost 20 years and was intimately familiar as to why we were the murder capital of Canada. I, quite frankly, lost count of the number of bullet wounds and stab wounds I treated. The vast majority of those were due to the illegal drug trade, most of that being cannabis.

I thank you, and I appreciate the statistics that you were able to quote from Washington and Colorado about the market share that has gone down from the illegal market due to the legalization.

Another big public safety issue that, again, I became intimately familiar with, was impaired driving in all of its forms. We know that, as you said, this is something that is going on. Legalization isn't going to create this. We know it's happening. Do we have any data right now as to the prevalence of people who, today, are driving impaired on cannabis?

I don't mean accident victims on whom simply the presence was found, but data on collisions and their prevalence due to impaired driving due to cannabis?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I don't have those statistics right with me this evening. This might be of interest to all members of the committee. I will ask my officials to prepare a summary of, statistically, what we do know at the present time about drug-impaired driving versus alcohol-impaired driving. I will send that back to the committee just as soon as we're able to compile that arithmetic.

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

Okay. Thank you.

With regard to Colorado, we heard testimony that what they thought was an apparent spike in cannabis-impaired driving was actually due to improved detection methods as opposed to an increase of actual incidents. Will this legislation and the provisions that are coming out of it in law enforcement help to better detect and track impaired driving due to cannabis?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

The legislation, particularly Bill C-46, which is the companion piece, will assist in that regard in two ways. First of all, it will introduce new roadside screening equipment that will be more helpful in providing preliminary information about potential drug impairment and then lead to more specific testing at the police station with blood samples. The equipment will help get more accurate information.

Second is greater training. Part of the money that I referred to in my remarks will go toward training more field sobriety-testing officers, who have the skill set necessary to identify situations at the roadside. At the moment, there are, roughly speaking, 3,500 of those officers properly trained across the country at various levels of police forces. Our objective is essentially to double that number over the course of the next 18 months to two years.

We're also aiming to increase substantially, by at least 50%, the number of drug recognition experts. These are people who are pre-qualified as experts in detecting drug-related issues and then testifying to that effect in court. There are now, roughly speaking, 500 of them in the country. We would want to see that number go up to at least 750, distributed across the nation, obviously.

Providing better equipment and providing larger numbers of properly-trained officers, either in the field or at headquarters in the police stations, will certainly enable us to be more precise in future with respect to tracking and quantifying the issue.

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

All right. Thank you.

Now one of the other concerns that's been brought up is regarding our provisions for allowing growing up to four plants in the home. I know we have a lot of assumptions on it. We don't know how common it's going to be. It is apparently a very difficult and labour-intensive plant to grow, or so I've heard. But, again, there are many assumptions. We had a member from one of the police departments talk about what would happen to a 200-unit apartment block if half the units had four plants, but when I asked him what makes him think he would see this, I got the response, “I don't have any evidence that could prove that”.

That being said, do we have any idea, under the conditions we have, as to how big a problem this would be or how common this would be? Also, do we have any federal legislation that would restrict how many plants you could grow if the owners of a multi-dwelling unit wanted to ban it? Is there a federal law that would say you can't grow this in apartment blocks?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

In terms of federal laws, we're going to continue to work with the provinces and territories, and particularly work with municipalities, as there is an implication with respect to residential tenancy. Because of all the different interconnections with respect to different jurisdictions and different orders of government's laws, we'll continue to work with our counterparts in that regard.

In terms of the scenario you talked about, an apartment building, this was discussed at great length by the task force, as you know. The restriction to four plants was in part a recognition that having an overabundance of production of plants could lead to the concerns that are raised with major grow operations that happen in buildings. Restricting the number of plants prevents those negative consequences, certainly.

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

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

You're time is up.

That completes our seven-minute round of questions.

At this point I'd just like to welcome two new permanent members to our committee, Dave Van Kesteren, from the Conservatives, and our new parliamentary secretary, Bill Blair, who's been with us quite a bit, but he's now a permanent non-voting member of the committee. We welcome you both and look forward to your contributions.

Now we're going to the five-minute round of questions with Mr. Webber.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, ministers, for being here today.

Minister Wilson-Raybould, we heard testimony from Dr. Steven Hoffman, who is a professor of law at Osgoode Hall and an expert in international law. He is very concerned, as are we, the Conservative Party, that we don't break any international laws. He proposes that this Bill C-45 legislation would in fact violate three UN treaties: the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, which is “to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of drugs”; the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971; and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988, which is to establish as a criminal offence the purchase or cultivation of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances for personal consumption. These are three UN treaties that basically we would not be complying with when this legislation passes.

I just want to know what your government plans to do in dealing with the other countries around the world who are a part of this treaty. Do you plan on just not complying and violating the treaties, or are you going to withdraw from the treaties? If, in fact, you do withdraw from the treaties, you have to give notice, and the deadline for notice for your proposed legislation of July 1, 2017, has passed. I just was wondering what your government is going to do about dealing with these international partners of ours.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

My colleagues and I are working very closely with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Thank you for speaking to the international conventions that we are a signatory to. I'm very aware of the commitments that have been made with respect to those conventions.

We're taking a substantive approach to legalization and strictly regulating cannabis in Canada. We've been very open with our international partners about our approach and certainly are taking a substantive health and safety approach as we move forward with the legalization and strict regulation of cannabis.

That health and safety approach is consistent with the goals and objectives of our international conventions, but we are going to continue to ensure as we proceed that, as the previous health minister did at the United Nations, we are very open with the work we're doing, the purposes of the work we're doing, and the unique and purposeful approach we're taking to this bill, and we are going to continue to ensure that we maintain open and strong communications with our international partners.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Have you given official notice and indication that you will be withdrawing from these treaties?