We are talking about people over 18, so this subclause does not talk about young people at all. We talked about Colorado and Washington being used as models. Well, we didn't use Colorado and Washington for models in several other very important respects. For instance, they legalized edibles and this government didn't. So you can't really pick and choose. You can't really refer to other jurisdictions and say we use them as models, but only when it suits your argument. The punishment section of this clause is very clear. In the very first part, it says that “every person that contravenes subsection (1)...is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable” to a term of imprisonment of “not more than five years less a day”. It then has “summary conviction” possibilities as well.
Make no mistake. If you're caught with more than 30 grams, you are liable, under this legislation, to up to five years in jail. You may not get that the first time, I agree, with discretion, but you could. The thing about trafficking and using the argument that if someone has 40 grams of cannabis, we're going to make the assumption that they must be traffickers, that's actually not consistent with the way the law is now. You can't make an assumption just because someone has a certain amount of cannabis that they're going to do something. That's why the law currently requires other evidence of trafficking like scales, baggies, or other accoutrements of trafficking. If you have a trunk full of scotch, nobody assumes that you're going to sell it on a black market just because you have a lot of scotch. I would say, leave the law to the discretion of the courts and judges on that.
Mr. Van Kesteren, I want to be clear. Cannabis is not without health impacts, for sure, but the evidence was very clear that it is not as harmful as alcohol or tobacco. There's no known overdose limit for cannabis and it's not a carcinogen like tobacco is. That's why there's the argument, in my view, that cannabis should be as proportionally regulated as tobacco and alcohol. We don't have five-year jail terms from having 50 cartons of cigarettes in your trunk. You can go to the store and you can buy as many cartons of cigarettes as you want. You can buy as much alcohol as you want. So why would we put a limit on cannabis?
Finally, if Canadians find that there are arbitrary elements in this law, then they will disrespect the law and they will ignore the law just as they have been doing for decades. Unless you have a good argument to tell adult Canadians why they can't have 35 grams as opposed to 25 grams, and one can go to jail for five years, and one person is a law-abiding citizen, you're running the risk that people will flout the law and disrespect it. That's really what's happened. If there's no rational basis for 30 grams, then we shouldn't be restricting adults that way.