Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from the Bloc for his question, and I will say that there is no doubt the changes put in place by the bill are there to assist in the safety of our firefighters, law enforcement officers and those in emergency services so that they are not injured in the course of their work.
However, the irony of this legislation, as we find in some of the other legislation in the House, is that it is contradictory. On the one hand we are concerned about the criminal element. Most of it, as we have heard in the debate today, is associated with marijuana grow operations. The demand for marijuana is putting at risk our firefighters, our police officers, our farmers and people who live in rural Canada, yet at the same time we are talking about Bill C-38, which really applies to the non-medical use of marijuana. We are talking about turning that infraction, which is a Criminal Code infraction, into a parking ticket offence. I think we are sending the wrong message to Canadians.
Those who support the decriminalization of marijuana say we can prevent its use through education. How do we do it through education? We are concerned about youth. Who do we put first, the youth or the recreational users of marijuana? That is my question.
Is it possible to have that balance if we are encouraging youth through a parking ticket approach if they are caught? In fact, the suggestion now is that it decrease from 30 grams to 15 grams. I am told that 15 grams is like half a package of cigarettes. I also heard this morning on the radio that there are more young people using marijuana than smoking tobacco.
I think the government has to get it straight. It has to decide that what it is doing is consistent and that its legislation is consistent. We cannot do one thing in one piece of legislation, that is, protect the firefighters and the police of Quebec and the rest of the country, while at the same time in another piece of legislation we promote the use of the same drug.