Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will use this opportunity even though we cannot speak to the amendment.
This is what we have been saying since the beginning. I'm not too pleased with this. That's not the impression I want to give my colleague, Mrs. Mourani.
We did feel that prohibition should be prohibited. That wasn't anywhere in the legislation. Despite the attempts, it was not there. Of course, the preamble says what it says, but then the legislation says something else. That's really unfortunate.
I know many groups that will be extremely disappointed. They had literally pinned their hopes on this bill, whether or not we agree with the solutions proposed. They basically invested their hopes in this legislation. I know that because I met many of them before. Since the Bedford decision, I have been meeting all sorts of groups—advocating decriminalization, legalization, criminalization, abolition and so on.
It was clear to me when the government introduced its bill that people would be disappointed. The minister was saying that he was open to amendments. As we have seen today, only one of the six Conservative amendments concerns the substance of the bill. The only substantive amendment is the attempt to criminalize. It was clear from the beginning that people would be extremely disappointed, given the preamble and the actual legislation.
This is not the first bill our committee is studying. The past is an indication of the future. People who asked me questions thought we were defeatists, but that has nothing to do with this. It has everything to do with the committee's methods and procedures, which yield mere peanuts in terms of results. I don't feel that the amendment calling for a review is peanuts, although a five-year review almost is.
This is unfortunate. It was so predictable and very sad.