It is funny, Mr. Speaker. I hear a lot of Liberals talking about the opioid crisis and the cannabis legislation when in fact the opioid crisis is a legitimate public health emergency and yet, for some reason, they do not consider it enough of an emergency to declare it a public health emergency.
Cannabis is a bit different. While I believe it is imperative to legalize it, there is certainly no emergency to do so. It is not the NDP or the Conservatives who are asking the government to slow the process down; it is the provinces, including Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Police forces, indigenous communities, and municipalities are also asking the government to slow the process down. We are not talking about defeating the legislation like the Conservatives are doing. New Democrats believe that cannabis should be legalized and we want to work with the government to do so.
My question has to do with pardons, which this legislation does not deal with. Could my hon. colleague tell me if the Liberal government has any plan whatsoever to issue pardons to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who carry criminal records for possession, an offence that this legislation would no longer make a crime after July 1, 2018?