Evidence of meeting #159 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was conviction.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Founder and Director, Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty
What are you suggesting?
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
The pardon and the document that accompanies the pardon and everything is based on something that exists already with the exact same result, and it works. This is the language that's used daily with other police forces in other countries. Why are we recreating the wheel when we have something that is perfectly efficient and achieves the objective at stake?
Founder and Director, Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty
It's for the same reason that we have Bill C-93 proposed, as opposed to just the Criminal Records Act. There's a specific mischief that the government is responding to, which is a historical injustice, in my submission. The government has recognized that there's a history of disproportionate impact of cannabis convictions, of cannabis prohibition and enforcement of this law, on specific people in Canada. That's why the government is implementing, in addition to what it already has.... It's saying let's do something a little bit more. They're saying that little bit more is that they're going to remove the fee associated with it and remove the waiting period. They're not recreating the wheel, but responding to a specific mischief.
What I'm proposing is also a response to that specific mischief, but my suggestions are going a bit further. There is room to construct something where there is a unique mischief that the government is responding to, particularly when it pertains to historical injustice that will result in people losing faith and confidence in our justice system because it doesn't treat people fairly.
In terms of recreating the wheel, there are currently approximately 23 states in the United States that have either decriminalized or legalized cannabis, and of those 23, seven implemented some kind of measure for expungement or pardons or amnesty for cannabis-related offences, and of those seven, six are expungements.
In the United States, it is standard pro forma to approach things by way of expungement. The United States will understand that language better than they would understand a pardon, because it means something different in the United States. A presidential or a congressional pardon is something different from what we call a pardon.
Liberal
Michel Picard Liberal Montarville, QC
During your opening statement, you talked about focusing on the most important records.
I completely agree that someone who is looking for a job needs their pardon in order to find employment. You're saying that the government, or at least an administrative body, should do the work. How is someone in an administrative organization supposed to decide which records on the list or in the database are most important?
Founder and Director, Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty
I think in my description of what was important, I didn't mean important in the sense of a qualitative assessment of the content of the file or the record. What I meant by important is the location of the document that has the most impact on the person's life.
Let's say that there's an individual who had a conviction in 1983 of simple cannabis possession. The entry would be in CPIC, and that entry may also be contained in physical documents in a courthouse, in a storage facility somewhere. If we want to spend our resources to rid that person of the stigma associated with the criminal record, we should go after the digital record in CPIC rather than the paper record in the basement of a courthouse, because the digital record is the one that's most likely to have an impact on that person's ability to find employment.
Maybe I wasn't clear, and I apologize for that, but it wasn't the content of the document that's most important. It was really trying to discern which types of records we want to target for the purpose of making sure that our efforts and our resources are expended only where they will be the most effective in assisting people to get their lives back on track.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Picard.
There was reference to Bill C-66 coming before this committee. I don't think it actually came before this committee. It was some other committee, but it wasn't this one, I'm pretty sure. It was probably justice.
Mr. Eglinski, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you.
I'd like to thank both witnesses for being here.
I'll start with you, ma'am.
I'm going to go back in history a little bit because I was there. I started policing in the 1960s and drugs just started to filter into Canada's community in about the mid-1960s. I was there when we started an active enforcement program, regardless of whether it was Edmonton city police or Vancouver RCMP. I watched the progression as it came up to today. I've been there and watched it.
One thing that you mentioned—and I do agree with you—is that we can not rely on anything out there for this record thing other than CPIC because CPIC didn't start when the drugs started. There are lots of records that are lost who knows where. We discussed that a little bit.
We've had discussions here by our parole people who say they have to look at it and decide whether that person should be eligible or shouldn't be eligible. They say that they're going to be able to do it quite quickly. It should be immediately, but when they sit it here they say it may take some time. To me, that's not going to be cheap and fast.
I've brought this up a number of times. I think everybody here in this room kind of knows that I think pressing a button is the way to do it for simple possession charges. It was very clear to this committee the other day that if the charge was reduced 15 or 20 years ago from something else to simple possession and that's what the Crown decided to go on and that's what the person was convicted of, then all we can rely on is that simple possession charge.
In this day and age of artificial intelligence, some of the best minds in the world here in Canada could not develop a program that would connect the CPIC program held by the RCMP with a computer going through that thing faster than we can with a group of people. You'd think a logical way of doing it would be where the computer would go and kick out the ones that should be kicked out and delete them.
I wonder what are your feelings on that.
Founder and Director, Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty
I think there's definitely room to develop a program like that. I think an even more complex algorithm could be developed to determine whether there are aspects of a person's record in its entirety that warrant further inspection to respond to some of the concerns of the Police Association, which may be valid with respect to.... You don't want to expunge the records or delete the records of somebody who should probably be followed, but for simple possession....
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you for that. I think we're thinking the same way.
Could you send us a list of the six states that are doing the system because I would like to find out if any of them are doing it by computer or if they're trying to do it the manual way.
I would be very interested to know that.
President, Canadian Police Association
I agree with what you're suggesting. The only concern I would raise is that the problem with just expunging that record—or deleting that record, to use your term—is that there are records that exist elsewhere in other databases. You need to still have some kind of an accompanying document or record that says that the CPIC entry has been deleted, so that—
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
A properly produced program with the proper agencies working on it would be able to do that.
Founder and Director, Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty
There are a number of jurisdictions in the United States—they're municipalities—that are using artificial intelligence and predictive coding to identify records and eliminate them. I'm just on our web site right now because we have listed some of them there, but I can certainly provide this to the committee.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you.
Tom, just to let you know, it's $25 for a check in your city and $25 if they want to add a fingerprint check. Ottawa is $42 for a criminal check, $99 if you want fingerprints and $139 if you're a company.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
You're done your five minutes.
My ever-vigilant clerk has corrected me. Bill C-66 did come before this committee. The benefit of getting old is that everything seems fresh again.
Ms. Dabrusin, you have five minutes, please.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Thank you to both of you. It has been helpful to get your perspectives on things, especially in the context of what we heard on Monday as well.
Ms. Enenajor, first, you stated that this bill shows a recognition of historical injustices. If this bill passed as is, unamended, would you be happy to see it go through as a first step in righting those historical injustices?
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I want to speak to you about some other points.
One of the issues that came up on Monday was really about tracking down all the records. The question seemed to be, in what was suggested to us by the officials, that if it was upon them to do all the work themselves as opposed to putting the onus on the person seeking the pardon, they would have to go and check records that might be in basements to see if it was actually simple possession of cannabis as opposed to something else.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
However, if I understand what you've suggested today, these would all be schedule II. Would that be how it's marked in CPIC, as schedule II?
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
At that point, all but one of those items would be in fact legal today.
Founder and Director, Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty
It has been a while since I've juxtaposed schedule II and the schedule of the Cannabis Act, but I do believe it's almost identical.
I know for sure that schedule II of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is only cannabis and cannabis-derived substances.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Then one simplified process might not get everyone, especially because laws change and schedules change over time. However, if there was a way to date it back, one way would be to actually make it somehow automatic for schedule II possession—and I'm not using the right legal terminology because I don't have the act in front of me—