Mr. Speaker, again it is my pleasure to speak to the bill. I am not an expert in this area but I have spoken with constituents, with police officers and with a number of family groups and I know their feelings on the bill.
I would like to share those feelings with members of the House. It is rather ironic that in the years that I have been here, every time we have a crisis in government all of a sudden we seem to start dealing with bills that will attract a lot of media attention. Whether it is same sex marriage, abortion or some of the social issues, it seems that those just happen to come up on the agenda about the same time that the government finds itself in a crisis.
I find it rather amazing that the government is in a crisis today and all of a sudden we are talking about marijuana, a most interesting subject that, hopefully, will attract some headlines and get the culture of scandal and corruption off the table.
I do not think it is a coincidence that we are talking about marijuana today. It is basically saying to Canadians that if they are foolish enough to forget about the scandal, here is something that we can get them worked up about as well. Let us start there and let us talk about the bill.
The government has no real strategy or vision, and the throne speech shows that. It does not know where it wants to go with the drug issue. It wants to sort of ride the middle rail, maybe a little bit here and a little bit there. Let us have a two tier system of fines that sends a clear message out to the police, the families and the kids in our society. If people are a certain age they will be fined this much but if they are that age they will be fined that much.
What message are we sending? Obviously, that is not taking a strong stand. That is not taking the science into consideration and, after all, it should be based on those sorts of things. It seems to me that the government is not really listening to the experts either. It is not looking at the consequences, such as the U.S. relationship, all of those things that are implications to the bill.
The government is also not looking to the fact that in my community and in many communities marijuana is now being used as a means to put crystal meth into marijuana so that a kid can become hooked sooner. Science again says that if people use crystal meth one or two times they become hooked.
That is the kind of dirty drug that back when I was young, a long time ago, we at least were smart enough to stay away from. The people who did take drugs knew that there were certain things that they should not fool around with and crystal meth was one of them. If in fact users of marijuana are being hooked by being told that marijuana is fine, that it is just a mild drug and that it is no big deal, but it is being laced with crystal meth, that is a serious problem. That is why the message becomes so important.
I read a pretty interesting book over the Christmas break called The Road to Hell . It is about how the biker gangs are conquering Canada. It tells what the biker gangs are doing in this country and it tells how they are hooking young people and putting them in business. It tells how these young people are so hooked that they become prostitutes and criminals who commit break and entries and steal cars. It is part of a big plan. The gangs are doing really well. They are making billions of dollars. Part of that can certainly fall on the shoulders of the government for not sending the right messages.
Let us look at several areas to which the bill applies.
Let us first talk about the families. I am sure that most members in the House have met with parents of kids who are hooked on drugs. I am sure they have met with parents who have 19-year-olds who started smoking marijuana, then worked their way up and are now 19-year-olds hooked on heroine. The truth is that those young people have a 90% chance of being dead at the age 30. We should talk about that kind of family issue.
What do we say to those parents? Do we say that it is really too bad, that they can go into rehab, but the chance of their children going back on that drug and overdosing is 90% by the time they are 30 years old. It will kill them. A parent's child is dead because of the message that we have sent. Our job is to send the right message. The message is that drugs are bad. We have to do everything to encourage young people by saying that there has to be a better way than to start off with drugs, starting with marijuana. Decriminalizing it I think will send the message that it is okay.
Biker guys are lacing marijuana with crystal meth, but that is okay. Yes, people will get hooked, but that is okay. Maybe they will try something else, but that is okay. That is the message coming out of this place. That is the message the police have when they are on the street trying to stop the whole crisis. They go into the courts and do not really know what the guidance is from Ottawa.
It is a slippery slope. Why did most of us get into politics? Because we cared about the country. We cared about what the country would be like for our children and grandchildren. We wanted to do everything we could to make it a better place for them. That is why the messaging becomes so important and why this bill becomes so important. I am not on the justice committee. I am just the average MP back at home listening to the families, the police and the people who are affected by this.
Families are concerned. The heartache that can be created by drugs within a family, all of us have experienced and seen firsthand. Obviously, we should do everything to try and help those families.
Having a two tier fine system again sends the wrong message to young people. It tells them we will not fine them as much because it is really not as bad if they get hooked early than if they get hooked late.
What does this do for our communities? Ask any police officer what causes most of the crime in our communities. I happen to have a thriving community that has low unemployment and massive growth. We are like a bright light. A former politician in the House and a good of friend of mine, Preston Manning, used to always say that bright lights attracted insects. We are attracting insects and those insects are pushing drugs. They are pushing crystal meth, marijuana and they are associated with a lot of crime.
What do they do when they get young people hooked? They get them into crime. They get them into breaking and entering. They get them into taking cars. There has been close to a 70% increase in crime in my community. If the police are asked why, they say it is because of drugs. They do it to fix and keep their habits going.
There are so many more areas we could talk about, such as the two tier system, American relations, marijuana leading to harder drugs and driving. We do not have a test for people who are intoxicated with drugs. Until we do, it seems to me that we should definitely not be legalizing in any way or sending the wrong message from this place about the use of drugs.