I know my Liberal colleagues don't need to jump to their defence on that, but I think, with respect to Mr. Van Kesteren's comments, there is clearly a very large philosophical difference between the Conservatives and other parties on the proper way to regulate this. Unfortunately, Mr. Van Kesteren wasn't here, I don't think, to have the benefit of hearing the evidence we heard for five days, but we heard a massive amount of evidence about the harms of criminalization, and I want to speak to my motion a little more pointedly.
Nobody is talking about cannabis being some sort of economic action plan for the future. I'm going to quote Kirk Tousaw again. “It's not the creation of an industry. The industry exists.” There's a $7-billion to $10-billion market in Canada right now, and that's in a criminalized context with jail terms. After spending billions of dollars trying to pursue a criminalized approach to cannabis, where are we? We have a $7-billion to $10-billion industry that's controlled by the black market, and our youth are among the highest users of cannabis in the world. That's what a hundred years of a criminalized approach has gotten us. That's the evidence.
I want to comment on a few things. The point of this is, if you have willing jurisdictions, let's say another country adopts Canada's model of recreational cannabis, I see no reason why we wouldn't want to be trading, as we are with medicinal. What's the difference between our exporting medicinal cannabis and our exporting recreational cannabis to a willing jurisdiction that is prepared to receive it?
I know the U.S. federally does not currently legalize marijuana but right now eight states in the U.S. have legalized cannabis; 14 states have decriminalized; and another 30 have legalized medicinal cannabis. Even in the United States, perhaps the toughest jurisdiction on drugs in the developed world, they are moving in that direction.
Mr. Oliver referred to three of the purposes, but there are seven purposes in this legislation, and one of them is to provide for the licit production of cannabis to reduce illicit activities in relation to cannabis. If you don't legalize exporting, if you don't let responsible licensed Canadian business people and producers export, who do you think is going to export? I'll tell you who's exporting now: organized crime. I live in British Columbia where the cannabis drug trade to the United States and other countries is controlled by the Hells Angels.
If we're supposed to be trying to provide for the licit production and reduce illicit activities, wouldn't you want to bring the regulated production of that cannabis out of the hands of organized crime and put it in the hands of legitimate Canadian business people who can then deal with it in a responsible, regulated way? By leaving exports in the hands of organized crime, we're hamstringing legitimate Canadian business people and producers who are going to start producing recreational cannabis, just as they have been producing medicinal cannabis, and we're allowing them to export.
Again, if medicinal cannabis is allowed, I fail to see what the difference is with recreational cannabis if it's properly regulated, properly labelled, etc.
I won't get into the philosophical position as to why I think this is a more productive and responsible way to regulate cannabis, other than to say that in the last election, more than 60% of Canadians voted for the Liberals or the NDP together. Both parties pursued very explicit policies of legalizing or decriminalizing cannabis. There was a reference to a referendum, and there's no greater referendum than a federal election, I don't think.
I congratulate the government for pursuing this. I think the legislation is a good first step. It reads to me like an excellent first draft, and I believe we're rushing this a little too much. I agree with my Conservative colleagues that we're going to see holes in this bill, and we're going to see unintended consequences for sure, because of the rushing, but that's what we're trying to do here today, as the NDP. We're trying to do our best to improve this bill, and propose amendments that we think are going to help, and to allow the importation and exportation of recreational products between willing jurisdictions that have well-regulated recreational cannabis industries, just like the medicinal side, makes total sense to me.