Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to enter into the debate on Bill C-10 on behalf of the NDP caucus.
I wish to pay tribute to the work done by the NDP's social policy critic, the member for Vancouver East, who has dedicated a great deal of energy and resources to this issue. She has tried, as is her way, to introduce a voice of reason into a highly charged and emotional debate about the decriminalization of marijuana. Her contribution has been noted by other speakers in the House and I too would like to acknowledge the good work she has done on the bill.
It was during the previous session of Parliament that Bill C-38 was examined by the special committee for the non-medical use of drugs and was amended. Throughout the committee process, the member for Vancouver East and the NDP pushed for a number of changes. We did get some movement from the government on certain aspects of the bill. When Parliament was suspended in November and the new session commenced, Bill C-38 became Bill C-10 and is now up for debate in the House today.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about this bill and about the government's effort. On September 30, 2002, the Speech from the Throne indicated that the federal government would consider the possibility of the decriminalization of marijuana possession. This piqued the interest of a great deal of people across the country. Many of us believe that it is a waste of time and resources to lock up a whole generation for the simple possession of marijuana.
Many of us are reminded by our own youth when we learned that places like Texas were locking people up for 30 years for simple possession of small amounts of marijuana. There are still people in Texas jails serving the remainder of 30 year sentences that they received in the 1970s for marijuana possession. Our belief is that this is absolute folly.
We should be clear though that what was introduced in the Speech from the Throne was never passed because by May 2003 a government backgrounder on the bill stated that:
Under the proposals included in the bill, cannabis possession and production will remain illegal in Canada under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. What will change is the approach to enforcement.
The justice minister at the time made a public statement. He said:
--you say I'm saying it's not decriminalization. It has never been decriminalization.
Let us not let the Liberal government mislead people to think that the bill is about the decriminalization of marijuana. It is not and it never has been. What has been introduced under the bill is a fine regimen for simple possession under 15 grams.
Our problem with that approach is that, if enacted, the bill may lead to increased prosecutions and increased waste of resources by having this mandatory fine system and having fewer people charged criminally. The reason being is that quite often police let people go for a simple possession of under 15 grams because it would tie up the courts.
That would now be eliminated. Those people would now be fined. Criminologists have found that lowering, but not eliminating a punishment, results in more punishment. Among criminologists, it is called the net widening effect.
Individuals charged with fines and the people the police would normally have let off with a warning and a wave under the old system will instead be guaranteed to be hit with a fine. In other words, decriminalization in this formula could lead to more people being punished, not fewer. The Ottawa Citizen on May 28, 2003 stated:
A cutting-edge plan--if this was 1968: Replacing the criminal charge for possession with a fine will change little, or nothing at all.
What did the federal NDP push for? Our member for Vancouver East was very active in the committee and she pushed for the amnesty provisions that past charges or convictions for simple possession of marijuana should be erased. A pardon does not go far enough. We said that it should go back as far as records were kept.
I still have people who have difficulty travelling to the United States because on their permanent record they have a simple possession from back in 1970. If they answer honestly at the border if they have ever been convicted of an offence and they cite their simple possession charge in 1970, they run into difficulties.
We made suggestions that the records of people who received a fine for simple possession and/or cultivation for personal use would be sealed and not shared with Interpol or other foreign jurisdictions. That is a sensible thing that the NDP member for Vancouver East pushed for at committee and we are happy that the government side did accept it. This is truly something to celebrate.
I also wish to recognize the member for Burlington and her efforts on the committee and her willingness to work toward a reasonable resolution to some of these issues.
Under the non-commercial transfer of marijuana, simply giving marijuana for no money, in other words passing a joint, would be technically trafficking. When someone says “Pass that joint over to me”, technically the person who passes it may be guilty of trafficking.
Bill C-10 should be amended so that the non-commercial transfers of up to 30 grams of marijuana would not be considered trafficking. We pushed for that idea.
Under reasonable grounds for searches, changes should be made to the provisions which are required for police to obtain a search warrant to enter a person's home. Currently, under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act suspicion that an illicit drug of any amount in a home is enough for a warrant to be issued.
The bill should include new provisions that are more consistent with decriminalization. The bill should be amended to require that police demonstrate reasonable grounds to believe that an amount of marijuana in the home would exceed 30 grams or that trafficking is in fact taking place in order to receive a search warrant.
Under fines, the NDP proposed that we eliminate the proposed fine for possession of up to 30 grams of marijuana. That was our base line position. Our member for Vancouver East argued that as aggressively as she could.
Under personal cultivation, non-punitive provisions for personal cultivation should have been included in the bill allowing for the personal cultivation of up to five plants. This has always been an irritant to any reasonable person in the country, that something that grows wild in the ditches could be a criminal matter if it is grown in their home.
The NDP did succeed on some issues. Throughout the committee stage, the two primary issues the NDP pushed for were ensuring that information on people who received fines for personal possession would be kept sealed and not shared. We are pleased that is the case today and that the laws would be amended to allow for the cultivation of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. We did get some improvements in these two areas.
The committee amended the bill to prohibit the disclosure of information on people who had a fine for simple possession. That is a very important measure because it would prevent law enforcement agencies in Canada from sharing that information with other countries. The U.S., in particular, often prohibits people from crossing the border if they have marijuana related charges or convictions.
Although the federal NDP pushed for amendments to allow personal cultivation of up to five plants, the Liberal dominated committee chose to set the maximum at three and it still supported imposing a fine. However, rather than the risk of jail time, those found with up to three marijuana plants would face a $500 fine. This is not satisfactory.
The NDP believes strongly that the bill needs to contain amnesty provisions for people who currently have criminal records for simple possession. Let us put a retroactivity measure in the bill, which we should have had, to correct an historic injustice and an historic wrong.
If simple possession of marijuana no longer risks a criminal charge, those who now have a record for a similar conduct should be entitled to amnesty. We feel very strongly on this point.
We had hoped that Bill C-10, or Bill C-38, would be a first step in recognizing the harms associated with a prohibitionist policy toward marijuana.
However, the new Minister of Justice has not given any indication that he supports further changes in this direction, leaving intact the myth that the criminal law can resolve problems relating to the use of drugs. We disagree and we feel it is sad that we could not get more of our amendments put through.