Debates of June 13th, 2016

Opposition Motion — Decriminalization of Marijuana Possession

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

My 25 years as a teacher compel me to make education the foundation of everything I do. Who currently controls the drug market? Is it organized crime? We will be quick to agree on that.

Since this morning, what I want out of decriminalization is for us to be able to work on the buyer. If there is no longer a buyer, then there is no longer a market. With that we can take a giant step. If by educating the person we ensure there are no more clients, and a student does not get a criminal record for making a mistake once in his life, then we will have taken a big step.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it humorous that we are coming to the defence of those who choose to do something illegal. They choose to do something that they know is illegal and the NDP is standing up for them. I am sorry, but I have a hard time with that.

I want to ask a question again on driving impairment. The NDP motion calls for the immediate decriminalization of marijuana. Does my hon. colleague know what the level of impairment is? Is it one joint, half a joint, or a quarter of a joint? How do we judge? This is important. As we move forward with the decriminalization of this drug, our police agencies are on the side of the road trying to enforce laws and judge individuals' impairment.

Is my hon. colleague aware of any of the studies of the effects of marijuana and what the level of impairment is?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will respond with something entirely legal that adequately expresses, in my opinion, the state of mind of teenagers who live in the moment and at the whim of their surging hormones.

Teenagers are legally allowed to have sex. Oddly, I often saw cases involving students where the young girl was dumbfounded that she was pregnant because they had sex only once. That is not the issue. Bringing this back to drugs, the issue is on simple possession. I am not saying that we must make it legal for the schoolyard big shot to sell drugs. I am saying that we should not give a criminal record to a student who is experimenting or is caught with simple possession. Again, 80% of our marijuana cases are for simple possession. That is what we are trying to address with our motion.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know a man of a certain age who has a criminal record because he was found guilty of simple possession, which is what we are debating today. Consequently, he cannot travel to the United States. Some of his family members live in a distant country. When you have to travel long distances, most flights leaving Canada pass through the United States. Therefore, he cannot visit his family who lives far away because he cannot travel through the United States.

We spoke about this problem, and we spoke about how difficult it can be to get a job for someone with a criminal record for something that will no longer be illegal in one year's time.

I would like to know if my colleague has come across such cases in his own riding.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question.

The short answer is yes. Even worse, it is more difficult and expensive to obtain a pardon because of the previous Conservative government's policies. Someone with a criminal record for simple possession of marijuana who would like to be pardoned will find that it has become more expensive to be pardoned for a so-called minor offence. In any event, the Liberals are telling us that this offence will no longer exist in 2017 because they are going to fully legalize marijuana.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel.

The member is definitely the best dressed member in this chamber.

Given that this is the first time I have risen today, I want to express my condolences to the victims, their families, and their friends for the horrible murder, terrorist act, hate crime, which occurred in Orlando. We were all very touched by what happened and very disconcerted. It is hard for many of us today to concentrate on the motion when we think of the crimes that ISIS is perpetuating, and now we are talking about marijuana.

Let me be blunt. I was not one of the cool kids in high school. I never tried marijuana. To be honest, I am glad that I did not. It is not my style to smoke, drink, or to use drugs, but I also understand that it is not my right to impose my own views and my own values on all Canadians. I respect and accept the fact that our party has proposed making marijuana use legal. As part of that, we also said that we were going to regulate and restrict.

While I appreciate the motion put forward by my hon. friend and colleague from Victoria, and I highly value his intellect and love working with him, I disagree with the perspective that we are going to simply decriminalize without looking at the other two very important facts: regulation and restriction.

The motion makes no distinction between 14-year-olds and 40-year-olds. It does not say that decriminalization is going to occur only for adults. It is saying decriminalization is going to occur for everyone. One of the things that is incredibly important to me is keeping marijuana out of the hands of children. Marijuana use is not without its effects.

As we all know, it can make people slightly loopy for a certain period of time, but there are also ties to breathing disorders, mental health issues, and particularly for young people whose brains are still developing, marijuana is a dangerous substance. It is not something we want to be widely distributed to our children. However, if we are going to decriminalize without dealing with how marijuana is distributed, without dealing with how we are going to keep it out of the hands of kids, we are going to enter into problems that are not anticipated by the motion.

I do understand, with a competent adult who is looking at a government that says we are going to make this legal, that we would have a certain sympathy for the fact that they are going to be prosecuted and get a criminal record. However, at the same time in my view, the law is the law is the law. Whether we agree with the law or do not agree with the law, whether we believe that a law is going to be rescinded or not, it does not mean we do not have a duty to respect the law as it is. As such, my sympathy for the people we have been talking about today is slightly muted, because they should be, just like the rest of us, respecting the law. That is what we are supposed to do until such time as the law is changed.

The NDP has raised Bill C-14 and I also want to raise Bill C-14 because one of the things this government was criticized for was the quick process that led to Bill C-14. However, in the case of Bill C-14, there was a very good reason. There was a Supreme Court deadline of June 6. In the case of marijuana, there is no deadline.

The key studies and the commentaries that we have had from the states in the United States that have legalized marijuana use, in particular Colorado, among others, has been that we should take the correct time frame to put in place the right measures to go along with legalization. We should not be rushing this.

Not only do we need to have the regulatory rules in place, but we need to have the infrastructure in place. We need to have those people who are ready to legally distribute marijuana. We need to have the police forces and judiciary prepared for the way we are going to treat this. We need to have the educational resources available for how we are going to go into the schools and explain to our young people why they should not be using marijuana and try to disincentivize them from doing so.

One of the things that is also troubling to me around the idea of accepting the motion is the question of regulation of the product itself.

We have heard from many Canadians, including the hon. member for Outremont in 2012, who talked about the fact that there was marijuana in our country that was very hard marijuana and was dangerous to health. If we are going to legalize marijuana, or even decriminalize it, we need to have standards in place to talk about how it is grown and how to prevent contaminants from getting into it to ensure the marijuana used is safe to consume, to the extent possible.

We need to talk about packaging, distribution, and how we get this out of the hands of organized crime. My fear is that, if the motion is adopted as is, who will everyone buy from? The producers of medical marijuana are not authorized to sell it to those without a prescription. There is nothing in the motion to talk about how the distribution channels would work. As such, my concern is that those people who are currently illegally distributing marijuana across Canada, basically organized crime, are going to have freer licence to go into our schools and talk to our young people about how it is not criminal to possess small amounts and encourage them to buy from them. Once that happens, what other drugs are these people in organized crime selling? How will this stop someone who starts with marijuana from moving toward harder drugs that are also sold by the same distributor, if we are going to call the Mafia that?

This is of enormous concern for me because right now in Canada we have the highest rate of minors using marijuana of 29 countries. Therefore, whatever we do in terms of the legalization process, an important part has to be how we are going to keep it out of the hands of our young people.

I have heard the argument, and respect it, that police forces going after adult possessors of small amounts of marijuana takes police away from more important things they could be doing. I completely agree with this. I do not agree that decriminalization would have the same effect, because it still means these people should be ticketed. It still means prosecutions and the officers would be going to court. The answer is not decriminalization. It is legalization, but legalization with strict enforcement mechanisms, proper surveillance, and supervision.

I am very happy that we have an expert in our government in the area of marijuana use. The hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice is going to be leading us in this effort with his incredible former experience as the police chief of Toronto.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me underline that when I talked about his experience, I was not talking about him as a consumer but rather as a Canadian expert in the field who will help us on the path to legalization, but restriction and regulation along with it. He is going to be working with a team of experts in many different fields.

In conclusion, I respect and understand the hon. member for Victoria's point. Hopefully, in a little while adults who have small amounts in their possession will find it to be legal and will not be prosecuted. However, I do not believe we should be rushing forward on a path until we know exactly what the rules are, how to keep marijuana out of the hands of kids, and how we are going to regulate the product.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the government decriminalizes marijuana now, people will still be arrested, but there will be far fewer needless arrests and wasteful trials.

Why not use most of that $4 million per year to combat organized crime and addiction?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her good question.

Personally, I agree that police officers should spend their time on the things that are most important. I agree that decriminalization may help to distribute certain resources more effectively. However, I think that an attempt to save a few million dollars pales in comparison to the fact that we would be creating a system with no rules and no safeguards for keeping marijuana out of the hands of young people.

This has not been well planned. I think that we need a good plan. We have the opportunity to draft the best bill possible. That seems to be the best way to go, in my opinion.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I almost felt I had to come to the defence of our hon. colleague from Scarborough Southwest, but he corrected himself. I know our colleague from Scarborough Southwest is a long-time police chief with a distinguished career. I appreciate his influence in the House. I know he has a great ability and an incredible amount of experience in policing, maybe not in marijuana use but in policing marijuana use.

Is the hon. member for Mount Royal aware that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has come out against the legalization of marijuana?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the good humour of my hon. colleague.

For my entire history as a mayor and a city councillor, which lasted for 20 years, I dealt frequently with the police on issues related to marijuana. I was constantly faced with the situation where the police agreed that the current mechanisms that we used to stop people from possessing small amounts of marijuana and the de-focus on what really should be their primary attention on important crimes was a problem. They asked parliamentarians to act.

Recognizing that we should decriminalize this, along with strong regulations and prevention, is the right step forward.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am struck by one thing. The motion before us today has an incredibly strong rationale, which is that people should not have criminal records for the possession of a substance that the government in power has run a campaign on, saying that it will legalize it.

The Green Party wants to legalize it. We understand that the prohibition on cannabis serves one major beneficiary and purpose, and that is organized crime.

I did not get a chance to put this question to the Minister of Justice earlier, although I tried to get a question in. Would it not make sense for the Liberal government to commit early that the criminal records of people who carry a criminal record for simple possession, not for participating in organized crime, of cannabis, whenever that crime occurred, would have their records expunged once a legal framework is in place for legalization of cannabis?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things.

I repeat what I said during my speech, I believe that when something is illegal, regardless of a government's intention to make it legal, it is illegal. We all see what is happening in the Senate with medically-assisted dying. Who knows, despite the House of Commons willingness to make something legal, how the Senate is now going to react.

I do not want to prematurely state that something is going to change. People should act in accordance with the law during the period that the law is in force.

I certainly understand what the hon. member said. I would certainly be willing to further discuss that point with her, if and when marijuana use does become legal for adults.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, being the only member of the House who has had the honour of voting for the member for Mount Royal during the last election, I wish to thank him for the pleasure of sharing his time with me.

I rise to respond to the motion from the member for Victoria, which calls for the immediate decriminalization of the simple possession of marijuana for personal use.

I will explain how our government cannot support this way of doing things because it will ultimately increase the revenue of criminal organizations.

Until such time as we legalize, regulate, and restrict marijuana, which was our platform commitment, we need police officers to continue to enforce the law related to marijuana.

Under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, marijuana possession, production, and trafficking are illegal in Canada. Simple possession of up to 30 grams is an offence, with a possible fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail.

More than half of all drug offences reported by police are for marijuana possession. In 2014, they amounted to 60,000 offences reported and just over 22,000 charges laid. Most, if not all, of that marijuana is supplied at the moment by organized crime.

As the House is aware, the government was elected on a platform that included the legalization and strict regulation of marijuana. The Minister of Justice and her colleagues in health and public safety are pursuing an orderly and responsible approach to fulfilling this commitment.

We will legalize marijuana, regulate it, and restrict access. We will prevent children from accessing it. Furthermore, we will prevent organized crime from profiting from this lucrative business.

We will also provide for harsher punishments for those who supply marijuana to minors, who operate a vehicle while under the influence, or who sell marijuana outside the regulatory framework.

We hope to achieve this by the end of next year, after carefully consulting the provinces and territories, law-enforcement representatives, and other stakeholder groups.

To that end, we are striking a task force on marijuana legalization and regulation to consult with Canadians broadly as well as a wide range of stakeholders. These stakeholders will include provincial and territorial governments, experts in public health, substance abuse, law enforcement, criminal justice, and economics, as well as indigenous and youth groups.

The member for Victoria would like us to decriminalize without a proper legal framework in place. It is important to keep in mind that there are unintended consequences to doing so. Of all of the unintended consequences of decriminalization, perhaps the most dangerous is the opportunity it would provide to organized crime groups to profit from illegal drugs.

If we were to adopt the member's motion for the months remaining until legalization received royal assent, marijuana would continue to be illegal, but users could acquire it illegally without fear of criminal justice sanctions. This gives criminals an opportunity to ramp up their operations. Therefore, the unintended consequences of the member's motion would be to aid the criminal organizations that are currently involved in importing, growing, and selling marijuana in Canada. Make no mistake about it. They have no qualms about selling it to our youth.

Overwhelmingly, organized crime groups that operate in Canada are involved in illegal drugs and have established networks to grow, procure, and sell marijuana, and launder the profits. About 80% of crime groups identified in Canada are involved in the illicit drug market, particularly at street-level traffickers.

The sale of marijuana is currently a big business. The profits give organized crime even more power. These criminals can use the profits to move into such activities as illegal migration, trafficking of human beings, money laundering, economic crimes, cross-border smuggling of counterfeit goods, and even environmental crimes such as the dumping of toxic waste.

I know that the member for Victoria does not intend to promote such criminal activities, but that is what his motion could do.

By legalizing and regulating marijuana, the government is also seeking to restrict the role of organized crime in selling and distributing marijuana.

If we decriminalize before fully exploring all of the elements of legalization, we are giving organized crime an opportunity to further entrench its involvement in the illegal marijuana market. It will be even harder to get these criminal enterprises out of the marijuana trade once we legalize.

There are many other aspects of marijuana legalization that will need to be considered, and the task force will do that. It will look at such issues as the impact on criminal records for simple possession, for example, and I know the impact on ordinary Canadians is a major impetus for the motion before us.

We must consider how the new regime will impact organized crime. If we were to decriminalize marijuana without implementing a legal and regulatory framework at the same time, we would be fully and completely surrendering to organized crime groups, which must be combatted, punished, and deprived of their sources of income.

It would be irresponsible for us to decriminalize marijuana before legalizing it. Until it is legalized, the existing laws must be upheld and enforced.

I therefore invite and urge all members to vote against this motion.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understood from his firm tone that protecting our children comes first. My question is a simple one.

Right now, a teenager who wants to try marijuana has no choice but to turn to organized crime or the illicit market. Once marijuana is legalized, supposing that happens, and once a retail network makes it available to those 18 years of age and over, how will that solve things for a teenager who still cannot buy a joint at the Société des alcools du Québec, for example? That teenager will still have to turn to the illicit market, and that market will surely offer more attractive products to protect its market share.

What we want is for that teenager not to end up with a lifelong record for a youthful mistake.

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

We need to look at the much bigger picture. This is not just about decriminalizing marijuana and then saying that now it is going to be legalized. This is about setting up a whole framework around the legalization, regulation, and use of marijuana, as well as all kinds of support measures that cover everything from prevention to education and incentives to counter use.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the same question I have asked repeatedly today. The Liberals claim that they are going to incarcerate fewer people for simple possession of marijuana, and that they are different from the Conservatives.

In 2014, 57,000 people were arrested for it. The Liberals came to power towards the end of 2015. They are claiming that they have been a little more lenient and that fewer people have been arrested than under the Conservatives. However, they will not give us a number.

Can the member provide any figures whatsoever to justify this position that the Liberals are not quite as bad as the Conservatives when it comes to arresting Canadians for simple possession of marijuana for personal use?

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but I want to emphasize that this is not something that can be quantified. This kind of situation has occurred many times in the history of this country.

Parliament has already tried to prohibit certain behaviours. What is needed now is reflection and consultation. Conversely, there have been other times in history when we have considered allowing behaviour that was previously prohibited.

The motion brought forward by the NDP, my colleague's party, is remarkable because it would require us to develop a very strange solution that would involve leaving certain laws in place and allowing people to break them. What my colleague failed to mention is that this motion will only make criminal organizations even richer. I would really have liked him to recognize that. His party does not have any solutions to propose in that regard.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the excellent member for Courtenay—Alberni, who will deliver the second part of my speech.

It is pretty clear as to what is happening here. I saw, as we all did during the last campaign, Liberals going across the country committing to move toward the legalization of marijuana. That was a commitment that they made, and there were a lot of Canadians in good faith who said they supported that idea so they would vote for the Liberal Party. I will come back to decriminalization in a moment.

Today, we are seeing in case after case, Liberal Party members standing up with speaking notes that are prohibition speaking notes. Their speaking notes are exactly the same as the speaking notes we saw under the previous Conservative government, except at the end of their notes, the Liberals said that eventually, maybe, they will actually move to legalize simple possession of marijuana. They will change all those good things they just said about prohibition.

Let us understand the logic here. As we have seen over the last eight months, the Liberals have broken well over 100 of their promises so far. They made a commitment solemnly before all Canadians that they would move to legalization. They said it would be within a few months. Around April 20, we heard that the Liberals were going to make a big announcement. The big announcement was that they were not announcing anything, but maybe in a year or two years.

If we understood the member for Scarborough Southwest in his previous comments, not today but at another time, he said it will not be done during the first mandate of the Liberal government. It will not even be done before the next election. We now have this doublespeak from the Liberals, committing to something during the election campaign that is being betrayed on the floor of the House of Commons today, and will be tomorrow. If the Liberals vote against this motion to decriminalize, that would be a betrayal of the commitments that the Liberals made during the election campaign.

For Canadians who are following this debate, I would suggest that over the course of the summer they question their Liberal MPs who campaigned on one thing and are doing something quite different today. They are putting forward a prohibition speech and speaking notes, when what they should be doing is being concerned about the thousands of Canadians, overwhelmingly younger people in their twenties, who are going to have a criminal record for the rest of their lives because of the actions of the Liberals that are being taken over the course of this week.

I will come back in a moment to those governments that have put in place decriminalization. However, instead of saying that Parliament is moving to decriminalize and that they should have put in place an education program and will finally move to do that with the money they are freeing up from charging people for simple possession of pot, we have a prohibition speech. Instead of saying there is a framework that they could add to it, and looking at various other successful countries that have decriminalized possession of pot, we have Liberals today with a prohibition speech and prohibition speaking notes saying they are not going to move in any way to address the concerns of the tens of thousands of Canadians who will acquire a criminal record over the course of the next year because of Liberal actions. Many of these Canadians, in good faith, will have voted Liberal because they assumed the Liberals were actually going to keep their promise about moving to legalize marijuana. It is not about anything other than a Liberal government saying it would act differently, and now acting exactly the same way as the Conservative government acted when it was in power.

What that meant in 2014, as members know, is that more than 57,000 Canadians were arrested for simple possession of pot. What that meant in 2014 was that millions of dollars were spent on enforcing marijuana laws that the Liberals said during the election campaign they had no intention of reinforcing. In fact, I need to bring up the commitment that was made by the Prime Minister and by the Liberal candidates across the country. It was that they would legalize marijuana by removing marijuana consumption and incidental possession from the Criminal Code.

The motion that the NDP is bringing forward today is a motion that strikes historically to what the NDP has always fought for. For almost 50 years, we have been saying it makes no sense to have this war on drugs, to arrest people, to incarcerate people for simple possession of marijuana for personal use. We have been saying it for nearly 50 years. The Liberals said that in the last election, and today and tomorrow when the vote is held, it is obvious that they will betray Canadians who voted for them on that basis, on the basis they would actually keep their commitment.

There is no doubt where Canadians stand. There is absolutely no doubt. Canadians stand with the NDP caucus on this. They stand with other parties like the Green Party, which has also spoken out against this ridiculous concept that we should continue to give people criminal records that they will have to carry for the rest of their lives, which will make it more difficult for them to travel, to acquire jobs.

What we actually need to do is put in place a simple and smart decriminalization policy, so that if the Liberals do intend in their second term eventually to keep their promise, we will not see tens of thousands of more Canadians, aged twenty-something Canadians, acquiring a criminal record that ruins their lives.

Canadian were asked the year before last whether they agree that possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use should not be a crime. This is what they said. There were 68% of Canadians right across the country who said that they agree with that statement, that decriminalization as proposed today by the NDP, is what they believe in. Only 20% believe in what the Liberals and Conservatives believe in, which is continued incarceration, arrest, attacks against those who have small amounts of marijuana for personal use. The prohibition gambit, the war on drugs, started by the Conservatives and continued by the Liberals, most Canadians disagree with.

In my province of British Columbia, 73% of Canadians agree with the NDP decriminalization motion. In Alberta, it is 64%; in Ontario, 70%; in Quebec 64%; in Atlantic Canada, highest of all, 75%. Atlantic Canadian Liberal MPs who are giving these prohibition speeches today are out of touch with three-quarters of residents of Atlantic Canada.

As I mentioned earlier, even among Conservative supporters, a majority believe in decriminalization. Among Liberal Party supporters, it is 74%; three-quarters of Liberal Party supporters believe in the NDP's motion that we are bringing forward today for decriminalization.

It is very simple. If the Liberals really believe in education around it, instead of spending millions of dollars every year in prosecuting and arresting people for simple possession of marijuana, they would be taking that money and investing it in education programs. If they really believed in putting in place a legal framework, they would look to countries like Portugal that have decriminalized. In the case of Portugal, a recent article by the Journal of the American Bar Foundation Law and Social Inquiry said the following: “judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success”.

When we look at that example, look at the Netherlands, look at countries worldwide that have decriminalized, those example are there for the government to take. As the member for Victoria said earlier today, we are agnostic on how the government wants to go about decriminalization, but we believe strongly that aged twenty-something Canadians, or Canadian adults of any age, who have simple possession of marijuana for personal use, should not be arrested and should not be facing a criminal record for the rest of their lives.

It is a very simple proposition. We saw it at the Conservative convention where even Conservative delegates voted for decriminalization. We saw in the commitments that were made by the Liberal Party in the last election that it is time to stop arresting people and putting them behind bars for simple possession of marijuana for personal use.

Our party has stood up for that for 50 years. We bring forward this motion because we believe, as I have proven earlier, that all Canadians believe it is time to stop arresting people for this. If Liberal and Conservative MPs are true to their party's principles and true to what they said during the election campaign, they will be voting for our motion tomorrow when it is brought before the House of Commons.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of points I want to qualify.

First, the Prime Minister made it very clear in the campaign and most particularly in the throne speech of our intention in this mandate to bring forward legislation to legalize, regulate, and restrict marijuana. We have not been ambiguous in any way and to suggest otherwise is simply not factually correct.

As I listened to the remarks of the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, I wondered why he was so afraid of saying “legalize, regulate, and restrict”. He focused very clearly on one aspect of our government's policy, in which we said we would legalize marijuana, but we have also been equally clear about the importance. This is not based on ideology or the latest popular poll, which members across the aisle seem to rely on so much. It relies on science, the best advice that we have received from, for example, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, which is the pre-eminent mental health and addiction facility in all of Canada, on research we have done, and examples we have looked at in other jurisdictions, such as Washington and Colorado.

Overwhelmingly, the science says that in order to address all of the social and health harms associated with cannabis use, the proper approach is legalization, coupled with an effective, comprehensive, and responsible system of regulation on production, distribution, and consumption. I have listened carefully to all of the NDP members who have spoken today and they are all loathe to acknowledge all of the government's policy. They speak only of legalization and they neglect to include that.

I would ask the member opposite if perhaps he could address the issue of the importance of effective regulation to protect our kids and communities, to take billions of dollars of profit away from organized crime, and to protect the health of Canadians.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to reply to the member and to reiterate the incredible confusion that the Liberal government has caused in its first eight months of its mandate, first saying that it would move rapidly, then saying it would not, then saying that around 4/20 it had a big announcement to make, which turned out to be no announcement at all, basically just another delay of another year.

There have been Liberal members, of which the member for Scarborough Southwest is one, who have said they would find it difficult to tackle in their first mandate. When we take all of those comments together, we see the confusion that is taking place with law enforcement across the country. The member for Victoria spoke very eloquently about that earlier today, that there is a similar level of arrests and prosecution of Canadians for simple possession of marijuana in some parts of the country and law enforcement officials are moving off in other parts of the country. There is total confusion, total chaos.

There is a very effective motion from the NDP today. I have to ask Liberal members why they are backing off the commitment they made to legalize marijuana by removing marijuana consumption and incidental possession from the Criminal Code. The NDP has simply put forward what a lot of Liberals were talking about during the election campaign as a first step in terms of legalization. The Liberal government, in its first eight months, has offered absolutely nothing in terms of a regulatory framework that they have been talking about. What they have done is caused a lot of confusion by talking about different dates, a different process, a different way of proceeding.

It makes me very skeptical that the Liberals are even going to keep their promise on this. I think it will be part of the over 100 promises that they have broken. Why they intend to keep arresting people and putting them in jail for simple possession of pot is something that Liberals are going to have to defend this summer.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Before resuming debate, I want to remind hon. members to keep an eye on the Chair and when they see my signal, they could maybe speed it up a bit. Those were two very good discussions that took place, but they took up a lot of time. It is partially my fault, but I do not want to cut anybody off, because a very interesting discussion is taking place.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise today to speak on behalf of the NDP motion, which reads:

That the House recognize (a) the contradiction of continuing to give Canadian criminal records for simple possession of marijuana after the government has stated that it should not be a crime; (b) recognize that this situation is unacceptable to Canadians, municipalities and law enforcement agencies; (c) recognize that a growing number of voices, including that of a former Liberal prime minister, are calling for decriminalization to address this gap; and (d) call upon the government to immediately decriminalize the simple possession of marijuana for personal use.

This discussion has been going on for a long time. We can look back to the Le Dain commission in 1969. In 1971, the NDP introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession after the Liberals ignored the recommendations of the Le Dain commission report. In 1993, NDP MP Jim Fulton introduced a bill to legalize marijuana in Canada, and the Liberal government voted it down as well. There have been plenty of opportunities for the Liberals to address this issue.

In 2009, the NDP voted against the Conservative bill that proposed mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana, and the Liberal Party voted in support of that. The NDP used every tactic possible to stop or delay the Conservative omnibus bill that included mandatory sentences for marijuana, and the Liberals were nowhere to be found.

In my community, on the west coast, in Courtenay--Alberni, there has been a lot of confusion. The Prime Minister was elected, in part, on a promise to legalize marijuana. “We will legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana”, reads the platform of the Liberal Party of Canada, though no details were given about the speed at which this legislation might occur.

What has happened in Port Alberni is that seven medical marijuana dispensaries have opened since the election. There were none before. The RCMP in Port Alberni has decided not to take action or prosecute those selling marijuana at their dispensaries. However, in Oceanside, which is a 35-minute drive away, the same force, the RCMP, has decided to enforce the law. It is the same in Courtenay, which is only one hour north of Port Alberni. These are all RCMP detachments. They each have a different commander. It is extremely confusing and is becoming a huge problem for local governments as they try to figure out how this works and where they come in with respect to legislation.

In Port Alberni it fell on the local mayor and council. I will read from the Alberni Valley News:

But while the federal government works on delivering its platform promise, municipalities are left to grapple with dispensaries popping up in their storefronts. And given this is a federal issue, there doesn't seem much that municipalities can do.

Currently, selling marijuana—whether medical or recreational—is illegal under Canadian law, said Port Alberni RCMP Inspector Mac Richards.

Despite this the City of Port Alberni voted to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries at its Jan. 25 meeting. It wasn't a unanimous decision. Throughout the three months that city council debated the issue, it was split...

[Mayor Ruttan said that ] it was “unfair” for the federal government to have downloaded it onto municipalities—but that he was committed to upholding council's decision.

“But it doesn't matter—this is what council has voted for and I believe that council's position is fairly clear. It is this council's best attempt to control the uncontrollable.

This view was shared by other council members. Councillor Sharie Minions said,

It shouldn't be on the municipal agenda but it is a problem in our community. If we wait it will probably just get worse and worse and worse by the time the federal government does something about it

This is a quote about what it happening in my community. The local government has been downloaded a problem. People in the community do not understand whether marijuana is legal. It is being enforced in two-thirds of the riding of Courtenay—Alberni, and in one-third of the riding it is not being enforced.

I received an email from John, from Courtenay, who said, “There's been lots of raids and arrests at marijuana dispensaries of late. Given that this Liberal government will be legalizing in the near future, I have to wonder why this is happening. If you have any ideas on this matter, I would love to hear them. If there is a way you could remind the government, that would be great.”

I am doing that for John right now, making sure the government has been reminded.

There is another email. This is from Cory Pahl. He is a registered physiotherapist in Qualicum Beach. He says, “While not being a recreational user myself, I'm a member of the millennial generation, so I grew up around it and I have a contemporary view of marijuana professionally and its application in health and also in today's culture.” He also says that his suggestions come from a concern for his generation and the damage criminalizing some of their recreational activity has done. He has a lot of concerns about the fairness side of things.

I think we realize that the government was elected on a mandate to reform Canada's marijuana laws. Right now, the confusion is enormous. It has been left on the backs of local governments, local police forces, local RCMP detachments, to try to figure it out. We have concerns from business owners who are supplying patients who need access to marijuana. We do not know where supply is coming from for a lot of dispensaries, so there is confusion there.

We want to make sure that we use our resources when it comes to the criminal justice system for things that matter. We want to make sure that we use our resources to protect the vulnerable and make sure we give people the resources to be able to avoid choices that might harm them.

I feel it is actually very wasteful that we are spending time prosecuting people where it might affect their potential employment or their ability to travel in the future, when we know that the government has made a commitment that in a year down the road or so it is going to be legal. Why would we not make that decision now? Why would the government and the justice minister not make a directive to the courts to stop enforcing the marijuana laws today, to stop prosecuting people in courts, to stop chasing young adults and people who maybe could make better choices if we took a harm reduction approach? We know the government was elected on a willingness to change. We want to get it right. We know that harm reduction approaches have been taken in countries around the world, such as Portugal.

The NDP has laid out a very thoughtful, very respectful plan on how to move forward with reforming Canada's marijuana laws. Right now, my big concern is that the government made a promise, but it had no plan. It feels like it was made on the back of a paper napkin. There has been no action. It is very unclear and it is creating a very messy situation. Really, we need a decision.

When speaking about people in British Columbia, iPolitics just did a survey. It stated that possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use should not be a crime, and 73% of British Columbians agreed with that and 16% of British Columbians did not agree with that.

No wonder why people, after what they have seen, when they look at our history and the failure of the approach of previous governments in taking this issue on, when they see the mess that is being created today, do not have to look far. They can walk down the main street of Port Alberni or down the main street of many communities and they can see the lack of leadership on this issue is clear. It is creating a grey area. It is not doing what the government set out to; that is, protect young people and the vulnerable.

I call upon the government to support our motion, to support decriminalizing marijuana, and to support using our resources for what we need them to do; that is, take a more positive, progressive approach and follow through with its promise.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to ask a point of clarification. The member opposite gave some indication that this confusion he alleges exists is on the backs of the RCMP.

Notwithstanding that, quite frankly, on this side of the House, I do not think we could possibly be any clearer that the law remains in effect, so it should be obeyed, it should be upheld, and it should be enforced. At the public safety committee, about a month and a half ago, the RCMP commissioner appeared before that committee, and at that time, he made it very clear when he stated that the confusion around the enforcement of marijuana laws should not be overstated.

In light of those remarks and that clarification coming from him, I wonder if the member opposite would like to clarify his remarks.