Mr. Speaker, I am pleased, as always when I get an opportunity to speak in the Chamber, to take part in the debate today.
We are voting on whether to strike a special committee of the House to investigate factors underlying or relating to the non-medicinal use of drugs in Canada and to make recommendations regarding ways the government can act, alone or in relation with governments at other levels, to reduce the problem.
The issue is timely in the sense that we see in the newspapers and on television an increasing interest in it. There was an article yesterday in one of the Ottawa newspapers outlining the pros and cons of decriminalization. Last night counterSpin on CBC television devoted its hour to vigorous debate, as it usually does, on the pros and cons of decriminalizing some of the softer drugs, particularly marijuana.
I will begin with a synopsis of what Dr. John Hoey, the editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal , had to say on the subject. He said recreational use had proven fairly harmless over the years but that he was increasingly concerned, as are many folks in the Canadian Medical Association, about simple possession and personal use leading to a criminal offence being left on a person's record throughout his or her life.
Members of the CMA take the position that possession for personal use should by decriminalized. According to Dr. Hoey there are minimal negative effects to the estimated 1.5 million Canadians who use marijuana in a recreational way. He says the real harm is the legal and social fallout from charges of possession for personal use. He adds that 50% of all drug arrests are for simple possession.
It was interesting that members of parliament recently received a little pocketbook from Statistics Canada, “Canada at a Glance”. It was sent out in connection with the May 15 census day. According to the section on law enforcement, we are at a 20 year low in terms of criminal code offences. In virtually every category but two, and there are roughly 12, there are decreases, many substantial. For example, property crimes went down by 14.7% between 1994 and 1999. Sexual assault was off by almost a quarter in the same period.
However there are two exceptions. There was a slight increase in motor vehicle theft between 1994 and 1999. It went up 1.2%. Drug charges went up a whopping 32.8%, almost a one-third per cent increase, from just over 60,000 charges in 1994 to just under 80,000 charges in 1999, the last year for which statistics are available.
Clearly Dr. Hoey and others are saying that there is a problem. If it is true that 50% of charges, which would be some 40,000, are for possession for personal use, then there is a clear problem and a clear mandate for parliament to look at the issue in a serious way.
I was not a member of parliament in 1996 but it is unfortunate that an opportunity at that point to strike a special committee in both Houses to examine the issue was turned down. It was voted down and rejected for whatever reason. I have not yet had time to investigate why but it was turned down.
As a result, a Senate special committee on illegal drugs is well underway. It is scheduled to report next August. That would be several months before the amended date that has been proposed, which is November 2002. It is unfortunate that we will be duplicating what the other place is doing if we agree to support this. As far as I understand, all parties in the House are supportive of the motion of the hon. member for Langley—Abbotsford.
I suspect we will be attracting the same experts to come and testify and will be meeting many of the same people. It is unfortunate, when people are concerned about spending money wisely, that we did not seize the initiative in 1996 and have one committee rather than two.
The special committee on illegal drugs being run by the other place has quite a comprehensive series of references. It refers to the Le Dain commission which began its work in 1969 and finished in 1972. Virtually 30 years later we are still debating the issue.
The Le Dain commission, we may recall, held serious consultations on the negative impact of Canadian drug policy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It focused mainly on the non-medical use of drugs. It concluded that hundreds of thousands of Canadians found guilty of prohibited drug possession saw their personal freedom restrained for the rest of their lives because of a criminal record.
The commission also concluded that the huge police resources used to fight prohibited drug trafficking and consumption were aimed mainly at young people. Under the circumstances, the Le Dain commission recommended that sanctions against drug users be gradually eliminated, that the use of marijuana be decriminalized and that control methods other than criminal justice sanctions be used. That was the essence of what Le Dain had to say 30 years ago.
More recently, the U.S. national academy of sciences' institute of medicine published the results of a study commissioned by the white house director of drug control policy. The study dealt with the medical use of marijuana, which I appreciate is not part of the debate today. It is interesting that despite this academic finding the U.S. supreme court recently voted 8 to 0 against allowing the medical use of marijuana. I am pleased that is not the position of the government opposite and that we are proceeding along. The government's position is commendable.
We are not talking about decriminalizing marijuana. To refer to the member for Langley—Abbotsford, we are not saying that there should be no offences for use but that we should take it out of the criminal code. Even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police acknowledges that it makes sense to decriminalize possession of small quantities of drugs, including heroin, without actually legalizing them. That is one side of the issue but there are at least two sides.
Half the editorial page in the Ottawa Citizen dealt with the current city of Ottawa police chief who says that the decriminalization of marijuana or soft drugs for personal use is not a road he wants to go down. He sees the effects of drug abuse each and every day and says that it attacks the fabric of society.
He argues that marijuana and other cannabis products have much higher levels of THC than they did in the 1960s and 1970s. I do not know whether that is the case. Someone on counterSpin last night argued very vigorously that it was not. It is something the special committee could look at if the resolution passes. I suspect it is something the Senate committee will look at or may already have looked at.
A couple of other points are worth making. I wonder, given that we are going down a slightly different path than the United States, how much flexibility Canada will be allowed.
Within the last year stories have come out of British Columbia about police departments looking the other way with regard to small amounts of drug use. However we have also heard and read stories about American law enforcement officials prepared to chase suspected drug users beyond the Washington border into British Columbia and try to force the Canadian government to take a stronger position against drug use.
On the relationship between Canada and the United States, the front page of today's Ottawa Citizen features an interesting story about how high tech military spies in Ottawa have joined the United States' war on drugs by eavesdropping on South American drug lords.
With globalization and the intertwinement of our two countries, one wonders how much freedom Canada will actually have in areas like this. We obviously know that the current U.S. president and most of his predecessors have been very hawkish on trying to eliminate the importation of drugs into the United States. One could hardly imagine that they would take a softer policy north of the 49th than they would take south in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. That would be something which would merit attention by any special subcommittee that is established.
I would also like to make reference to my colleague, the member for Vancouver East, who has spoken out on the subject of drugs and the particular plight of people in her constituency in the downtown Vancouver area. She has been pressing the government on its response to the health crisis that results from drug use, its over use and the safety of citizens. In fact the member has raised this issue ever since she arrived in the House in 1997.
She reported that there are experts out there, including from the city of Vancouver, but the leadership and action on this issue over a long period of time has been so slow. She has called on the Minister of Health to adopt multi-centre heroin prescription trials, safe injection sites and better housing and social support.
These are some of the things the member for Langley—Abbotsford asked the colleague from the Bloc about when he referred to the places where users lived. They were places in which we would not want to put a dog. I am sure that that is absolutely true and something that needs to be looked at. Perhaps if we were to take some progressive steps here we could get beyond some of those deplorable conditions that exist now and make not only the users safer but the non-users and the people who are on the streets safer. We think, and my colleague from Vancouver East believes, it would reduce crime. We have seen examples of that in places like Europe and Australia, which have been a little more avant-garde than Canadian politicians have been.
In conclusion, the New Democratic Party welcomes the opportunity to debate this issue. We will support it. We regret that a special committee of both Houses of parliament was not struck in 1996 when this matter came up. It seems that the Senate is already well down this investigative road on the illegal or legal use of drugs or the decriminalization thereof. We are just starting down this road.
Having said that, we cannot go back to 1996. It is unfortunate we did not have one committee. We will now have two, but we will be supportive of this policy and this motion.