Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I feel compelled to take a moment to respond to my colleague, Mr. Van Kesteren.
My colleague Mr. Davies has in fact summarized much of my thinking in many respects. From a philosophical point of view, the opinions are diametrically opposed. I must say, however, that not all Conservatives think that way. Contrary to what you said, that was an integral part of the Liberal and NDP platforms. My colleague Mr. Davies said that. Even the Bloc Québécois and Ms. May subscribed to that idea. So 70% of Parliament intended to find a way to legalize marijuana.
I would invite my colleague opposite to read the record of the last five days of consultations. A tremendous amount of information was presented.
Unfortunately, we can see that your approach is partisan and that you are missing a large part of the information presented by people with the full range of opinions on the legalization of marijuana. It is extremely interesting to read the testimony, gather information, and look beyond the philosophy that leads certain people to not want to know anything or do anything because they see the planned legalization of marijuana in July 2018 as the apocalypse. That smacks of the politics of fear and trying to hide things. As we are saying, however, there is currently a market, it is in the news, and it is part of reality. For your part, you are proposing that nothing be done, but that is not how we are going to proceed.
I have had discussions with other Conservatives who are much more open to the idea of legislation and finding a way to protect young people rather than doing nothing. On the contrary, I think we are achieving what we have to. That being said, we want to do things well and properly regulate the use of marijuana, while being mindful of the safety of our children and of the population as a whole.