Madam Speaker, I am sorry that I only have three minutes to debate such a substantive issue but such is the case when one tries to rush debates and provide select committees to put important legislation before the Canadian public without proper knowledge of what is occurring.
I just heard the member and her concern about poor people. I think we are all concerned. However the hon. member, like many in the House, is completely oblivious and ignorant to the fact that in one out of four marijuana grow ops in this country, of the estimated 50,000, children live in those homes.
We understand the implications of those who are farmers and those who are forced to cultivate this product, people who come from other parts of the world and have to pay off the money they owe to the people who brought them to this country, many of whom are of Asian descent and who are kept in a position of enslavement.
I am willing to talk about this issue, but I think it is important that we understand some of the very important implications.
In its most recent document Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario states that there are some 15,000 grow ops in the province of Ontario and 50,000 across Canada. They produce approximately three million to six million kilograms of marketable marijuana. The price tag is about $12 billion a year. If that is the case it would appear to be the largest single cultivation of agriculture product in this country.
Who controls it? Organized crime.
Clearly, when we consider that for a $25,000 investment we can have a return of $600,000 on a given home, is there any wonder there is a proliferation?
The legislation is deficient. It does not provide minimum sentences. It is one of the reasons that the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada, just a few weeks ago, as the same the Globe and Mail and others were deriding us because we happened to meet with the American officials to talk about a cross-border problem, pointed out that organized crime was leaving the United States in favour of Canada because we want to have some kind of, relatively speaking, easy legislation as it relates to marijuana.
It is nice to give people a fine for possession. My concern is about the infrastructure of this industry.
While I am on that subject, the fact that there is in this country today, and in this legislation, no provision to provide the equivalent of a breathalyzer test is, in my view, unacceptable. It sends the wrong message to individuals. It does not protect motorists. It does not protect people.
Studies have pointed out very clearly, and I am reading here from several sources, that research has indicated that 5% to 12% of drivers may now drive under the influence of cannabis and this may increase as much as 25% as a result of this legislation. It is clear to us that if we want to prevent the carnage we need to do something to address the issue of no protocol as it relates to people who drive cannabis impaired.
The cross-border issue is a serious one but I am more concerned with the issue of organized crime. These people do not have fanciful discussions about benign products, about the utilization of marijuana. They are in fact there to make money. That money winds up in various other forms of exploitation of the poor, of people who are down and out, of individuals who have no choice but to follow the dictates of organized crime. When one considers $12 billion--