Madam Speaker, I had the good fortune of sitting on the health committee as we studied this bill. Broadly speaking, the New Democrats are in favour of legalization and want to work productively with the government to provide the best possible legislation we can have in this country. However, without any doubt, there are serious gaps and flaws in this legislation that, for some reason, the government does not want to address in its rush to have this legislation passed by an arbitrary date of July 1, 2018. For instance, one of the holes in this bill is that it would allow provinces to opt out of the home grow provisions and opt out of the 30-gram possession limit. As we have already seen, Quebec has indicated that it will not allow any home growing whatsoever. We are going to have a patchwork of marijuana regulations across this country.
My hon. colleague talks about the need to rush this bill so that we can get cannabis out of the hands of criminals, yet the Liberal government says the exact opposite when it comes to edibles. It says that it cannot regulate edibles because it is not ready for that.
There is no provision to ensure that small craft growers in this country will be licensed. The excise tax the government has brought in and imposed on the provinces has created a huge uproar in the provinces, because they will have to bear the lion's share of the burden of enforcement and the health care effects of this legislation, but the government is saying that it only wants to give 50%.
Why the rush? Why not take an extra three or six months, or even make it July 1, 2019, so that the government could keep its promise to legalize cannabis this term, but we could actually take the time to make sure we have excellent cannabis legislation?