You've covered a lot of ground, Monsieur Ménard.
With respect to decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, this will never happen under a Conservative administration. We have no intention of doing that. Quite frankly, we think that in the last number of years prior to our taking government, the wrong message was being sent out to people: that somehow marijuana was okay and that we may be legalizing it or we may not. We think it sent out the wrong message, quite frankly, to people.
I can tell you what people, for instance, have told me. I've been out to British Columbia about three times in the last two months. I can tell you what law enforcement agencies have told me with respect to the production of marijuana, because one of your questions was why don't we make a distinction or why are we lumping in marijuana with some of these other drugs.
I don't have to tell anybody in this country what a curse it is to start having grow operations. I see my colleague, Dean Allison, and he knows what I'm talking about. In the Niagara area, when they're uncovering these things, many times the house is destroyed. The people lose the house because of these operations. They are completely illegal. We want to send out the right message to these people that this sort of activity will not be tolerated.
Here's what law enforcement agencies in British Columbia were telling me, and this is no different, quite frankly, from what I get when I go right across this country. They're telling me that sometimes, in many cases, marijuana is the currency that is being used to bring in other drugs, other serious drugs, from outside of the country. They're being exchanged. They're shipping the marijuana out of the country and they're bringing in other drugs, like cocaine and heroine.
So, again, I have law enforcement agents telling me this is currency, this helps get the business going, this lubricates the business. Well, I'll tell you that makes me nervous.