Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time to add a few comments to the record.
I have a few concerns with the bill. First, the bill will increase demand. That is what law enforcement officials are telling us: that the taking away of these penalties or reducing the criminal penalties will fuel demand. At the same time, production is kept illegal.
What does that mean? We are ensuring that organized crime has an increased amount of market share. So this bill is tailor-made for organized crime--let there me no mistake about that--when we increase demand and keep the production illegal. Let's not fool ourselves on that.
I have talked to the schools in my area about this, and they are very concerned. They believe that this bill is also tailor-made to encourage small-scale trafficking among youth. That is what this is going to do. Thirty grams of marijuana or 15 grams of marijuana is enough to ensure that trafficking goes on in our schools on a small scale.
There is some disinformation that has been provided that the reason we are doing this is to get rid of criminal records. Every member of the House knows that at present there are conditional discharges available and absolute discharges available for the possession of small amounts of marijuana, and that is in fact what is given for these kinds of offences. To suggest to the Canadian people that this is the reason we are doing that is simply wrong. There are enough mechanisms in the current law to avoid criminal records.
The other point is the health issue. My colleague from Churchill has indicated that marijuana is just as bad as alcohol and tobacco. I don't know if it is just as bad, but I don't see the justification for putting yet another drug onto society. I am concerned about that. We have not looked at the health issue.
Health professionals are telling us that present-day marijuana is a very addictive drug. When I was growing up people always said that it was only psychologically addictive. No. Marijuana is physiologically addictive. And in the hands now of organized crime, which cures marijuana in methamphetamine and uses it in that way, we are ensuring that our children are going to be addicts.
I am not saying alcohol is good and I am not saying tobacco is good, but neither is this. Why are we doing this to our society?
If none of those arguments impress anyone in this House, let's take a look at the trade issue. We deal with the Americans in the amount of $1 billion a day. The Americans have made it very clear to me and others that there will be repercussions in terms of the passing of the bill.
We can say we are an independent nation and we can do what we want, but remember, they are our biggest customer. Eighty percent of our goods are going across that border. I would rather see those goods go across our border and ensure that the people in my riding have jobs. Quite frankly, I think we are blindly going ahead on the basis of disinformation, and especially in the absence of a national drug strategy.
I am going to reserve my comments on the drug impaired driving bill, Bill C-16. I will be speaking to that bill, which is a tremendously bad bill, and again is a matter of disinformation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this time.