Thank you.
I appreciate the comments from Mr. Oliver and Mr. McKinnon. I take it that their motion will also eliminate the 100-centimetre height restriction, so I respect that and I appreciate that they may choose their motion. It doesn't really matter how we get there, as long as we amend the provision accordingly.
I do want to make two quick points. Ms. Gladu brought up the excellent point that regarding the current provisions regarding medicinal marijuana, owing to the Supreme Court of Canada decision that Canadians have the right to grow their own medicinal marijuana now, we've heard no testimony about how that may be impacted by this bill. One of the many reasons that I support allowing Canadians to grow a limited amount of cannabis for recreational purpose is for that very reason, that we could have a two-tiered system where Canadians are growing for medicinal purposes under a claimed constitutional right, and Canadians who don't have a medicinal purpose would be prohibited from doing that. I think that would lead to a bit of disrespect for the law, because Canadians who want to grow recreationally would then simply claim that they have a medicinal right, which is what's happening now in many respects in Canada.
I think for uniformity purposes it's important to have a consistent approach to growing cannabis in this country. If medicinal users can grow it, so should recreational users be allowed to.
Finally, in terms of the fires and mould, my only concern about bringing up those features is that any evidence of mould and increased risk of fires has come from the police experience of dealing with cannabis as an illegal substance, where growing has been done underground and by organized crime. We have lots of stories of organized crime and people renting houses and filling a basement with 100 plants, cutting into electricity illegally, and not venting properly because if they were to vent outside the house, they'd risk detection. That then increases the mould.
I'm satisfied that limiting Canadians to four plants will mean that those very legitimate concerns about large-scale, illegal grow operations won't be applicable to a rational, reasonable limit of four plants. I'll bet your average Canadian has more than four plants in their house now, and certainly in their backyards people have foliage all over the place. I'm not worried about the mould or the fire problem, at least based on the evidence we heard for four plants in a Canadian household.