Health Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

It's an admissible motion.

We'll call for a debate on that. Okay, there is no debate.

(Motion negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Oliver, you have something you want to raise.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

At our last meeting at the end of last week we had passed a motion to send a letter to the Minister of Health. I think it should be to both the Minister of Health and Minister of Justice. There were two items that we had taken off the letter at that time because we weren't sure how the clause-by-clause would go.

One of them was dealing with edibles, which we've now dealt with. The other was dealing with pardons for those who had been charged and/or convicted with charges that are now legalized under this bill. I think we should put that one back into the letter.

I'm also thinking that Mr. Davies has repeatedly raised concerns about how dire or how heavy the criminal—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The penalties.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

—penalties are in this bill. I might be wrong, but my understanding is that a province or a territory could pass legislation to deal with the same areas and it would give the police another option or another alternative. Rather than moving to this bill, they could move to provincial legislation and have fines and penalties rather than the criminal charges. It would just broaden the tools they would have and the flexibility they would have to deal with situations that they're finding.

I'm wondering if that advice should be added to the letter as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We have a draft letter, do we not?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

No. We asked for it to be prepared, but we took two items off because of the unknown of the clause-by-clause. I wanted to put those two suggestions in the letter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I think the letter would be a very valuable supplement to our report.

Ms. Gladu.

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

Yes, I think the letter has the power of unanimous support of the four things that were originally there, including public awareness and education, and things that we wanted to encourage the Minister of Health and the Minister of Justice.... I agree with adding her to it.

I wouldn't be comfortable to add those additional two, but I would be comfortable if there was some clarification that the Conservatives were not supportive of those last two, the edibles and the pardon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I very much support the creation of the letter and the inclusion of recommendations on pardons. I think it was an omission in this bill, and the only reason we couldn't really address it as a committee was because it was outside the scope of the bill, so really almost a technicality. I think we should do that.

I don't know if Mr. Saint-Denis or Madame Labelle can tell us. Having passed this legislation that has the federal penalties in the bill, can provinces come up with a legislative scheme that legislates lesser penalties on those very same issues? I'm also wondering about whether they could do that and intervene in the Federal Court system, the superior courts of the country. As Mr. Oliver said, can we ask the minister to get provinces to pass almost a different penal system and level of offences? Is that possible?

[Paul Saint-Denis]

We've drafted the legislation, Mr. Chairman, in a manner that will allow the provinces some space to legislate, but they will not be able to legislate in areas where we have legislated and where we have imposed certain standards, and allow them to contradict those. I think that's the extent to which the provinces will be able to legislate in their areas, where we have left it open for them to do that.

Perhaps my colleague Madam Labelle might wish to add to that.

[Diane Labelle]

I think my colleague's comments are a fair statement. Where, potentially, provinces can move are instances like further restricting the age from 18 to 19, and in that space, 18 to 19, there would be provincially determined penalties that would apply, but not where the criminal law applies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If I understand correctly, that would probably be a “no”. A province couldn't change the 14 years to nine years or six years, etc.?

[Diane Labelle]

Correct.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you for that clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. McKinnon.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to also propose that we consider adding to this letter a request of the Minister of Justice to revise the law around conditional discharges to allow it in the case of 14-year sentences, which would address many of the concerns Mr. Davies had.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

How are we going to do this letter? We have a bunch of different ideas. Are we going to add to it by official motion or are we going to have the analyst draft a letter and see whether we approve it? Maybe that's the best way.

Is that okay? Based on the ideas you've heard, perhaps you can draft a letter and submit it to us at the next meeting, and we'll have a look at it.

The letter, to me, is an important part of this. Certainly, if there was one common theme that I remember, it was education and public awareness of the risks and those aspects of marijuana, which is not there now.

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I believe we passed a motion last time, and we had identified four or five items, which included education.

I would like to move that we add to the letter suggestions that appropriate actions be taken to remove or forgive penalties for people who have been charged and/or convicted for crimes that are now, under this legislation, legalized.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

All right, we'll take it one step at a time.

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

I just want to say that this is another one that I'd like to be exempted from. I agreed to the first four—I certainly stand in unity with the committee—but on the other ones I'm not so sure, until I see the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is there a consensus that we add to Mr. Oliver's motion?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I think we're probably voting on it. Then we can decide what the components of the letter are, and then the opposition can go off and do their own dissenting letter on those items.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We have a motion now. Your motion is to add relief from pardons and so on to this draft letter.