Evidence of meeting #72 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cannabis.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I support our country's two languages and want the French version to say the same thing as the English version.
I want to make it clear that the reason that we will abstain from this vote is not that we don't want the language to be the same, but that we are not in favour of the bill.
Thank you.
(Amendment agreed to)
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
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.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
This is one of the most troubling sections of this whole bill. This is the part where the 88% of Canadians who don't use marijuana are going to be impacted. We heard testimony, as Mr. Davies said, from the police about the difficulty of trying to enforce this. They will have chronic complaints. People will be calling and saying that their neighbour has five plants instead of four, or that their neighbour's plants are too tall. They can't see inside the house. They can't enforce it.
We heard testimony about the smell, the mould that people will have to put up with, the fact that they are 24 times more likely to have a fire because of the bulbs they're using. You could have up to 600 grams of marijuana hanging around in the house. There's no provision for lock-up, and this definitely is not going to keep it out of the hands of children. When we look at this and we look at the rights of property owners, who are now going to have people who rent from them able to grow and consume it right there, and they can't do anything about it, I think this section should have been eliminated altogether.
We heard from Washington that they only allowed home grow for people who were too frail to get out to a dispensary for their medical marijuana. The reason they did that, as we heard in testimony, was that organized crime does get into home grow. That's what happened in Colorado. That's why it shouldn't have been allowed. This is problematic for all the Canadians who don't want these unintended bad results.
Thank you.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Chair. I agree with Mr. Davies in every respect. However, his motion is incorporated in Liberal-3, which is the one I prefer to support. On that basis, even though I agree with Mr. Davies' well-made points, I will oppose this amendment.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I should point out that this one as adopted, Liberal-3, cannot be moved.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
On the same point my colleague raised, I support the principles Mr. Davies has put forward, but in our review of the language, Liberal-3 hits the language better. We have actually the reverse problem in respect of Liberal-6 and NDP-27. We think NDP-27 has better language and we'll be supporting it versus the Liberal one when we get there. So I would be opposing your motion just on a language technicality, not on the principles you've put forward.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
Thank you, Chair. I think Ms. Gladu ably articulated what I was going to say, so I don't need to repeat her thoughts. Thanks, Marilyn.
9:45 a.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
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.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
We did hear lots of testimony as well about landlords in huge apartment buildings. I am in an apartment building where my next door neighbour loves to consume cannabis and smoke it. It smells horribly and is very irritating to me. That certainly will be one of the problems.
The other problem is that there's no quality control. What this bill was supposed to do is protect the health of young people by restricting their access. Clearly, home growing does not do that. It was supposed to deter illicit activities and we've heard testimony that it doesn't do that. It was supposed to provide access to a quality-controlled supply of cannabis, and we know there is absolutely no quality control happening in home grows. For those reasons it's not consistent with even the goal of the bill, not to mention the fact that I disagree totally with the concept.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Certainly.
(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Now we go to amendment Liberal-3.
Mr. Oliver.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
Thank you very much.
In the last motion Mr. Davies has already articulated quite well what we heard from witnesses. This motion basically accomplishes the same ends that his motion did, but with language that is probably more appropriate to the bill.
Just to reiterate the main points, we heard from the chair and co-chair of the task force that their reason for recommending height restrictions had to do more with fence height and what we would view as civil rules, not criminal factors. No other jurisdiction that we heard from that allows personal cultivation of cannabis plants had a plant height limit. We, like Mr. Davies, just can't see a rationale for a height restriction.
The motion we are putting forward removes those restrictions but uses different wording in replacement.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Could I ask Mr. Oliver to explain what the fundamental difference is between his motion and my motion? What does his motion do that adds, subtracts, or differentiates between my motion?
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
I don't know if that's helpful.
I think the motion from the NDP basically removed words, and this removes certain words and puts different language in place. I think it's mostly about the numbering associated with it.