Public Safety Committee on May 27th, 2019

[Lyndon Murdock]

We were not involved in the drafting.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Okay, that's one part of the question.

Did you review this prior to submission?

[Lyndon Murdock]

I did not review this amendment.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Did any officials in your department do it?

[Lyndon Murdock]

I can't speak for others, sir.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

It's been pretty clear from the beginning what I've been trying to do. I'm trying to run a number of amendments that are all connected to try to make sure we can allow for people to access record suspension for simple cannabis possession, even though they might have an outstanding fine for that simple cannabis possession. The issue we've run into is that fines aren't fully within the federal jurisdiction. We're trying to carve out that you can apply and still get your record suspension. However, the fine is still outstanding and you can be asked to pay for it.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

Would anyone else like to add something?

Mr. Murdock, you have the floor.

[Lyndon Murdock]

Thank you.

To go back to Mr. Motz's question as to whether others had reviewed it, I can say that, yes, others did review the amendment.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

Thank you.

Who opposes the amendment?

What do you think, Mr. Picard?

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Are the supporters or opponents going first?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

I'll start with the opponents. I wanted to know whether the system was working.

Let's move on to the vote.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Clause 6 as amended agreed to on division)

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

We'll now move on to clause 6.1 and the CPC-5 amendment.

I must warn the Conservative Party that this amendment is inadmissible because it goes beyond the scope of the bill.

My Liberal colleagues will understand that I'm pleased to be saying this into the microphone today.

Do you want to discuss the amendment?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'd just like to follow through. I understand that we're maybe overreaching and giving authority where we can't, but again, it's the following through of my earlier submission and the recommendation that we'll be putting forward at the end. We need to encourage our Parole Board to look at electronic means of recording this information to make it as simple as possible.

My research has shown that there are programs out there that meet the needs of multiple jurisdictions in the United States. All I am basically asking is that we allow the Parole Board to proactively hire a firm or look at design software to help eliminate the problem we have right now and make it more electronically friendly and quicker. That was the idea behind that, but I realize there's a cost to that and we do not have that jurisdiction.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

Thank you, Mr. Eglinski.

(Clause 7)

We'll move on to clause 7.

Since there's no amendment, we'll proceed with the vote.

(Clause 7 agreed to on division)

(Clause 8)

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

We'll look at the LIB-6 amendment.

Ms. Dabrusin, you have the floor.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

The fun continues on this one again.

It's just allowing for the collection of the fines by the provinces. That's what this aims to do in Liberal-6. It's just completing it. There were consequential amendments that had to fit in with the original amendments that I made, and this is part of that package.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

Since there are no other comments, we'll proceed with the vote.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

We'll move on to the CPC-6 amendment.

Mr. Motz, you have the floor.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

This minor amendment is to address the question that neither the officials nor the minister was able to answer definitively. It's provided after the fact to the House and to the people of Canada.

When we inquired of him how many people would benefit from this act or how much it would cost, we were provided with basically the officials' best guess. Some academics estimate up to half a million people could use this record suspension process; however, officials estimated that 250,000 are eligible, with about 10,000 who might make use of it. If more than 4% of those who are eligible do make use of this process, the Parole Board will be underfunded based on the numbers that were provided.

The idea of the amendment is to ensure that the costs of free record suspensions for marijuana possession are not passed down to those applying for other record suspensions.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

Will there be a discussion?

It's too easy with me.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

No.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You're very efficient.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pierre Paul-Hus]

I'm too efficient.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

You're too threatening, Mr. Chair.