Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, this has to do with the cultivation provisions of the bill, where the proposal is to permit every household to have up to four cannabis plants to a maximum of 100 centimetres. In short, it's the New Democrat's proposal that we eliminate the height restriction of 100 centimetres. We do so based on the evidence that we heard before this committee, logic, respect for police officers' time, and good policy-making.
There is no clear policy goal achieved by limiting the plant's height to 100 centimetres that we heard, other than some oblique reference to the average height of a Canadian's fence, which is four feet or something. I'm not sure that's correct. I actually think that fence height is higher than that in Canada.
That was the only reason that we heard, in addition to one that was completely inaccurate, which was in fact repeated by the Minister of Justice, of all people, who suggested that the reason behind restricting the height limit of cannabis plants is to control yield. The reason that's wrong is that we had Dr. Jonathan Page, the botanist from the University of British Columbia, who testified that height restrictions don't restrict yield because the shorter indica type plants tend to produce a higher yield than the taller sativa types. Of course, with pruning and having plants growing sideways, you could have quite enormous plants that are not more than 100 centimetres. There's simply no connection between plant height and yield.
This plant height rule is easily circumvented by screening, horizontal growing, and very difficult to enforce. Many Canadians are growing cannabis in their houses now, whether it's a plant in the closet or a few plants, or in some cases all the way up to highly illegal grow operations in basements that are concerning to everybody. It's very difficult to enforce what Canadians do in the privacy of their own home.
We think that measures to reduce the visibility of plants grown on private property are best dealt with by municipal bylaws, not criminal law. Perhaps there could be municipalities that pass laws on screening, so that if you're growing in your outdoor backyard, maybe there could be plant screens or something around it. But to have an arbitrary limit of 100 centimetres is simply not logical.
This measure will continue to impose the harms of criminalization on individuals for what is essentially a harmless act. If you're not a criminal for growing four cannabis plants up to 99 centimetres, it's hard to understand why you're a terrible criminal for growing a plant to 101 centimetres.
I'll read some of the testimony we heard.
Jonathan Page, from the UBC department of botany, said that:
The limit of 100 centimetres is potentially problematic from the perspective that cultivators might break the law simply by providing fertile soil and water and then going away for a week's vacation. Their plants might grow from 95 centimetres to 105 centimetres during that time. I wonder what the goal of the 100 centimetre limit is, which was also contained in the legalization task force report. Is it to reduce the amount of cannabis that each Canadian is capable of growing so they don't go on to sell it, or is it to reduce the visibility of plants grown on private property? If it is the latter, I think this is best dealt with by municipal bylaws. If it is the prevention of diversion to the so-called black market, I would suggest that achieving this through enforced pruning is quite silly, and that the 100-centimetre height limit should be removed.
Michael Spratt said:
The criminal law power is a very blunt tool to deal with social problems. It's an even blunter tool to deal with gardening problems. When you look at the rationale that has been disclosed for the criminalization of that one extra centimetre—looking at fence height, not looking at yield or potency or problems with distribution—that could very well lead to some charter problems with respect to the rationality of that somewhat arbitrary benchmark.
Finally, Kirk Tousaw testified that:
Cannabis, particularly outdoors, can easily grow five or more metres high in its natural state. Do we really need or want a rule that would require Canadians who wish to grow a few plants in their gardens to continually tie down the branches or otherwise artificially manipulate a plant during its growth to keep it no more than 99 centimetres high? The 100-centimetre limits are the height of absurdity.
Mr. Chair, we heard a lot of testimony from police officers. Contrary to the purpose of this bill to reduce the burden on the criminal law system, I think the police forces were very clear that they see a lot of extra work from the bill.
They're going to have to be policing the impaired-driving provisions, which are new. They're going to have to be policing 100-centimetre plant limits, over 30-gram possessions in public, over five-gram possessions by teenagers 13 to 18, and possession of over four plants. I really don't think we want the police officers of this nation to be walking around with metre sticks attached to their holsters so that they can go into Canadians' houses and measure plants to see if they're 99 or 101 centimetres.
For all the reasons that I just suggested and most importantly, for the evidence that we just heard, I really hope that all members of this committee can at least agree that the evidence we heard was quite clear. There was not one witness who said that 100 centimetres was a necessary or highly justified plant restriction. If we are going to allow Canadians to grow four plants...and I'm in favour of that and congratulate the Liberals for having the courage to allow that. There are good reasons to allow Canadians to grow a few plants. If you want to get organized crime out of this, then let Canadians grow their own cannabis and share it with each other just like any other plant.
Let's allow Canadians to grow four plants and limit it to that, but not have an arbitrary and unjustified height limit that doesn't make sense.