Minister, I take that as a yes, a long yes.
When I've spoken with police forces in local areas, such as the police from Victoria and Saanich on Vancouver Island, and asked them about why they're not enforcing marijuana possession offences, charging people for it, they say they have more important things to look at. But when you look at police forces across the country, it's a real patchwork quilt. In other words, the law is not being applied equally, and I don't think it lives up to the standards of a Canadian being a Canadian across this great land of ours.
I'm wondering, with all the interim costs—and I understand you want to keep it out of the hands of children, but your government has admitted many times that it's easier for a teenager to get marijuana now on a street corner than it is to get alcohol or cigarettes. That's a fact. I'm simply wondering why your government feels it's still necessary to keep applying criminal law, which you have admitted is unjust, while we wait for legalization to come through. Surely it would be a good gesture to get rid of criminal records, which I think we can all admit do a lot of harm to people's lives in terms of their job prospects, their ability to travel, and so on.
I'm wondering why you couldn't simply give directions to prosecutors, to police, across this country to make sure that instead of a patchwork quilt, we have equal application of law.