Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, the NDP's amendment would amend this bill to provide for a procedure to pardon Canadians who have been convicted of offences that this legislation would no longer make a crime. It does so by amending the Criminal Records Act, eliminating the current wait time in the Criminal Records Act, which I believe is five years, and also by waiving the fee that's payable with respect to the application. The previous Conservative government lengthened the time you had to wait to apply for a pardon, to five years. They increased the pardon fees to a little over $600, both of which have proven to be barriers to Canadians seeking pardons.
My proposal would be to eliminate the waiting period and the fee for those people who have current convictions relating to cannabis that this legislation would no longer deem a crime. The rationale is pretty straightforward. We don't believe that Canadians should be saddled with a criminal record for offences that will no longer be offences under legalization.
We would leave Canadians in the perverse situation that after July 1, 2018, someone could validly and legally possess cannabis but someone could have been convicted two weeks earlier and have a criminal record for five years for engaging in the same act.
Given that the discriminatory impacts of the current law are well documented, pardons are an important means of restitution to those affected most severely by prohibition.
I have a couple of quotes, and then I'll wrap up.
John Conroy said:
The Criminal Records Act is what governs the pardon situation and there have been recent decisions that have pointed out that the ability to get a pardon is determined by the date of the offence. As a result, we've ended up now with a situation where, depending on how old your offence is, different rules apply under the Criminal Records Act compared to what's in the current version of the act.
Dana Larsen said:
I really think that the legalization of cannabis should begin with an apology to the cannabis culture and to cannabis users for a hundred years of punishment and incarceration and harassment and demonization that were entirely undeserved. ...I would like to see not only a pardon but an apology and some kind of restitution made.
That goes much farther than my amendment would.
Finally, Michael Spratt said:
Bill C-45 contains no measures, for example, to address the tens of thousands of Canadians who have been stigmatized through the war on drugs counterproductive imposition of criminal records. Those who have criminal records are less likely to be able to obtain employment, housing, cross international borders, and less able to fully engage in educational opportunities. Bill C-45 should amend the Criminal Records Act to remove the unconstitutional retrospective application of the pardon ineligibility period. It should restore pre-amendment waiting periods, and a further reduction in the waiting period should be available for individuals convicted of marijuana offences... Currently, 18-year-old, first-time offenders who are convicted of simple possession of marijuana the day before Bill C-45 comes into force will be required to wait five years before they're even eligible to apply for a pardon. Bill C-45 must remedy this situation. ...the fee of over $600 that, again, disproportionately and sometimes unfairly limits the availability of pardons to only wealthier members of society could be dealt with directly in this bill.
Mr. Chair, to conclude, I have taken that direct testimony from Michael Spratt and others and drafted that into language that would provide a simple and expedited pathway to pardons for Canadians. If this is ruled out of order or beyond the scope of the bill, then I think it's an egregious omission on behalf of this government to bring in legalized cannabis legislation without having thought of the impact on—I don't think it's tens of thousands, I think it's hundreds of thousands of Canadians who currently have cannabis possession records in this country. I would ask that my colleagues support this so that on July 1, 2018, we can not only correct the future for Canadians but provide a pathway to pardons for those Canadians who have been unfairly stigmatized by what in essence is no longer a criminal act.