Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a large petition today regarding Marc Emery, the leader of the British Columbia Marijuana Party who has been arrested and is facing deportation to the United States. The petitioners draw the attention of Parliament to a number of pertinent facts. I will not go through all of them but some are relevant here.
Marc Emery's activities, the ones for which he is being extradited, involve selling viable marijuana seeds over the Internet. It is worth noting that these activities were approved by Health Canada's referral of medical marijuana patients to his seed bank. It is worth noting as well that Canadian courts in ruling on this subject have ruled that a $200 fine is an appropriate punishment for this kind of activity as opposed to extradition to a country where he can face potentially life imprisonment.
Finally, it is worth noting that under the Extradition Act the petitioners point out that the Canadian minister of justice shall refuse to surrender a person when that surrender could involve unjust, undue or oppressive actions by the country to which he is being extradited.