Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today is making waves both inside and outside the House of Commons. Talking about decriminalizing simple possession of marijuana is an important issue that has raised much interest in the general public. A number of us have been contacted by various groups that would like to present their points of view.
As the Bloc Quebecois justice critic, I have had the opportunity to talk with various people and groups that have given me their comments. Because it is an important issue with considerable symbolic value, it is the duty of the members of this House who want to address this issue to do so calmly, without demagoguery, and with enough perspective for a clear analysis of the situation and the bill before us. We must analyze what has led to this bill and what its results would be.
Therefore, I call upon the members of this House who are going to speak to this bill to do so without personal attacks, without grandstanding, with a cool head, in short, as rigorously as possible. That would be the least of the expectations of the women and men who have elected us to this place.
This is the third reading of Bill C-10. One of the reasons we are examining this bill is that there is a movement within the population that has been asking for some liberalization of the Canadian legislation. One of the most influential groups, in my opinion, has been the Forum Jeunesse of the Bloc Quebecois, which has been battling on this front for a number of years. This week, it can finally see the result of its lobbying efforts.
Once again, I would like to congratulate the Forum Jeunesse. It has held forums, discussions and debates on this subject of considerable interest to the population group it represents.
We are at this point today because there is a fairly solid, fairly firm, awareness of what should be done. A policy based exclusively on repression will not work in this matter because it does not lead to the desired results. It is an expensive policy, and definitely not a cost-effective one.
So, we must take note of that. We must also keep in mind what we know does work and yield tangible results, which is to increase public awareness.
To smoke marijuana is not good for anyone. In order to fight this phenomenon, we must increase public awareness of course, and particularly that of young men and women, of teenagers who may want to experiment with this substance, which is harmful to health.
I want to be clear. Those who, both inside and outside this House, support a degree of flexibility in the criminal legislation on the possession of marijuana are not promoting its use. They are not promoting the use of a substance which we know can be harmful to a person's health. What these people are saying is that, currently, the punishment is worse than the crime, and this is what this legislation seeks to correct.
This bill seeks to ensure that, while a person caught with a small amount of marijuana should, of course, be punished and suffer the consequences of his or her action, such punishment and consequences should not be worse than the crime itself.
It is important that, in conjunction with this liberalization, this vast awareness campaign that I am calling for be launched, but with the following caveat: this awareness campaign dealing with education and health must be run by Quebec and the provinces. The federal government must not, yet again, use a commendable objective to interfere where it does not belong. It is time that steps be taken to allow Quebec and the provinces to run widespread awareness campaigns against the use of marijuana.
From the beginning, I have been saying that we must debate this issue calmly and objectively, which does not mean not being involved, but rather being objective, in order to examine the situation properly. Most of this work has been done in committee. It is important to repeat in this House what was said in committee, including the fact that other countries that have decriminalized possession have not seen an increase in marijuana use.
For the benefit of those who say that decriminalizing penalties for simple possession of marijuana would send a bad message and entice more young people to use, when we take a cold look at the situation and the studies that have been presented and analyzed in committee, we see that this is not the case. We can all agree that this removes quite a significant amount of rhetoric from this whole debate.
Despite its partisan and ideological differences, I believe the committee did excellent work, which resulted in the a new bill being put before the House, which is better than the one the committee examined.
There are four main reasons. First, many of us feared that there would be problems, despite the fact that individuals charged with and even found guilty of simple possession of marijuana once this bill is passed will not have a criminal record. Many members of the committee from both sides of the House feared that, even if an individual had no criminal record, this information could end up in some database somewhere and that even, for example, if a charge were dropped and the Canadian government did not retain that information, it could end up in the hands of a foreign government or an international organization, such as Interpol. Also, many feared that individuals charged or convicted in Canada for such an offence might still suffer the consequences, for example, when they wanted to travel abroad.
That is why I moved an amendment, the essence of which the government has retained, to include a prohibition on disclosure of a charge or conviction to a foreign government or an international organization, thereby ensuring that the consequences we wish to lessen in Canada will not continue to have as much impact outside Canada and throughout the world. This first improvement was supported by a strong majority in committee. I believe this is an extremely important improvement to this bill.
The aim of the second major improvement is to conduct a review in three years. I supported this amendment because I strongly believe that in three years, once the review is complete, people will realize that those naysayers inside and outside this House who predicted that the earth would all but stop turning and that Canada would basically become a land of junkies were wrong and that these predictions will not come true. The important thing, when it comes to such as a sensitive issue, is to conduct a rigorous analysis of the facts. This amendment will ensure that, in three years' time, the consequences of this legislation can be reviewed. I firmly believe we will conclude that we were right in passing this bill.
The aim of the Bloc's third major amendment is to ensure that anyone possessing from one to three marijuana plants is not charged with production, but is recognized as possessing small amounts of marijuana. I want to explain.
Everyone in the House knows that drug trafficking is controlled by crime rings. We all know and agree that our intention here is not to encourage these crime rings. We do not want to provide any encouragement whatsoever to these criminals.
The occasional user ought not to be forced to buy on the black market which is run by the underworld, thereby criminalizing him or her even further, although they are regular members of society in everyday life, paying taxes, raising families and so on.
The purpose of the amendment passed in committee is, therefore, to prevent the occasional user from having to buy on the black market and deal with hardened criminals.
The fourth element, not an amendment to the bill but rather a report tabled in this House by the committee chair—because there were two reports—has to do with driving under the influence of drugs.
I had introduced an amendment in committee to that end, but it was deemed out of order because it fell outside the parameters of the bill. The committee agreed with me, however, and so we raised that point in an additional report. One of the concerns frequently, and quite rightly, expressed by the public in fact relates to people driving under the influence of drugs.
What we want most emphatically to see is for the government to introduce a bill on driving under the influence of drugs, and to do so as soon as possible. We are aware of the results of the present legislation, as well as the numerous campaigns against drinking and driving. The same sort of approach needs to be taken to driving under the influence of drugs.
Driving under the influence of drugs is as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol. We must therefore come down very hard on those who contemplate driving under the influence of drugs.
I therefore wish to reiterate the support of the Bloc Quebecois for Bill C-10. I also wish to reiterate our most impassioned plea for a bill on driving under the influence of drugs to be introduced and passed. I call upon my colleagues in this House to debate this without rhetoric, to analyze it coolly and rationally, even if they may feel very strongly about the issue. This is definitely a symbolic debate, but it is also a very important debate for the future of our society.