House of Commons Hansard #188 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was cannabis.

Topics

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:40 p.m.

Conservative

Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member, who agrees with the government, how he thinks that our children will be better protected.

How can you explain to us that children will now be better protected against this dirty thing—

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:40 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I will to remind the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent that he must address his question to the Chair.

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:40 p.m.

Conservative

Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC

I will need a mirror just to be sure that the member is listening quite clearly.

Madam Speaker, can the member explain to us and to Canadians how Canadian children will be best protected and more protected than they are today against this dirty thing, marijuana, while they can have in their hands and their pockets at the age of 12 years old five grams of marijuana without any penalty, and while every single house in Canada could have marijuana plants and children can go into the houses of their friends and see marijuana plants in front of them? Does the member seriously think that our children would be better protected with the Liberal bill?

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:40 p.m.

NDP

Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC

Madam Speaker, the member's question does sound familiar. I have heard this a number of times today, so perhaps people are sharing the same sheet on this issue.

It is not as if the Liberals are bringing marijuana to Canada. Marijuana is already here. We need regulation on this. We need to give the police the proper tools. However, if we do not pass this bill, it does not mean marijuana is going to go away. We do have to regulate it, and that is what is going to protect kids.

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:40 p.m.

Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friends on this side of the House, although I did not hear any applause on the other side of the House. I know I am standing in the way of the House leader introducing another closure motion, so I am going to use my time judiciously.

As I said last night, the record of incompetence of the government is truly astounding. Only 19 bills have reached royal assent, yet it has now used closure 25 times. The Liberals have limited debate more than they have passed legislation in this House. This is setting records in our parliamentary democracy.

What I said is that this is actually a good thing, because if we look at the government's economic performance in taking Canada from a $1-billion surplus to an almost $30-billion structural deficit, we see that even though it raised taxes on people, on job creators, on small businesses, on payroll, on carbon tax, on excise tax, on the sharing economy, on beer, and on wine, it still cannot balance the budget.

Perhaps I should take it as a blessing that the Liberals have only been able to get 19 pieces of legislation through this House. Our country could potentially be in ruins if they were a little more ambitious in Parliament.

I am going to speak tonight, late at night, on the tyranny of the progressives. That is what we see with the government. It has an attitude that it knows what is best for us. If we dare criticize what it is doing, we are not supporting Canada's future, or if it does disagree with our position, it simply says we do not understand. It is a put-down to debate in this House.

I have listened to the standard speeches talking about organized crime and providing ridiculous arguments. We have tobacco, and organized crime is still involved in contraband tobacco, so I am shocked that the member for Scarborough Southwest and other members in the Liberal caucus would suggest that once this bill has passed, suddenly organized crime will not have any role in the sale of cannabis. These arguments are actually detracting from a serious debate on this issue.

Last night I spoke a little about my friend the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, the member for Winnipeg North. He has given us a treasure trove of quotes, because he used to stand in this place with outrage any time there was an omnibus bill or closure was used. Now he is the quarterback for the government House leader. That gives me a treasure trove of hubris, as I called it last night.

This bill is the biggest example of how the government seems to have forgotten one of its old siren calls, “evidence-based decision-making”. Do members remember, in the last Parliament, how they rallied around that as the third party?

Let me remind my friend from Winnipeg North what he said in 2012:

Good government policy is made when you have evidence-based policy decisions.

What did the Treasury Board secretary, who was then in opposition, say? He even turned a witty phrase on it. On a public health issue, he said:

There was a time when governments were guided by evidence-based decision-making; this government seems to be guided by decision-based evidence-making.

That is what I just sat through in this rushed debate on marijuana. The government is failing with this legislation on a public health front, on a public safety front, and on the mobility of our citizens with Bill C-23, which I think is the example of the biggest act of incompetence of the government that I have seen in my time in office.

The Liberals have negotiated a bill on preclearance at customs. They are giving immigration and customs enforcement officials from the United States the ability to search Canadians on Canadian soil, yet our government, the Liberal government, could not even get one simple preclearance question taken out of the U.S. repertoire: “Have you ever used marijuana?” If a Canadian says yes, they can be banned from travelling to the United States.

When the government had its state dinner, when the Prime Minister was so busy bringing his family and the public safety minister was so gosh-darned excited to get a tour of the Oval Office, the Liberals negotiated the most one-sided preclearance customs deal in the history of this country.

The Liberals are legalizing marijuana, yet they can not even ask the U.S. to remove that one question from pre-clearing. They are allowing the U.S. to come on our soil and search and interrogate our citizens. If that is not the biggest example of failure of the interests of Canadians in an international treaty, I do not know what is.

I will also speak about the other two fronts, public health and public safety. Perhaps the best quote is the editorial by the Canadian Medical Association, which condemns the bill. Its editorial, which was released a few weeks ago, said:

The purported purpose of the act is to protect public health and safety, yet some of the act’s provisions appear starkly at odds with this objective, particularly for Canada’s youth.

Simply put, cannabis should not be used by young people. It is toxic to their cortical neuronal networks, with both functional and structural changes seen in the brains of youth who use cannabis regularly.

That is an evidence-based opinion of cannabis doctors.

In recent weeks, Quebec and Manitoba have asked the government to slow down. There is no ability to ensure youth are protected right now in provincial regimes. There is no court approved test for roadside impairment from THC. Law enforcement is not ready and is asking the Liberals to stop. Our physicians are asking them to stop. However, once again, it is the tyranny of the progressives; they know what is better.

How dare we disagree? In fact, the Liberals are limiting debate on this again. How dare we share some of the concerns that families have about exposure of marijuana to their children. We know it harms IQ development. It can harm brain size development. The government likes to quote Colorado's example. Colorado is using 21 and is already experiencing incredible problems, where young children are seeing edibles in households and are being rushed to emergency rooms.

The Canadian Medical Association also decries the use of home-based growing, where the THC, the medicinal benefit, is not secured and rates of use can skyrocket. Organized crime can infiltrate this home-based portion of this legislation.

We have a government that made a promise when its leader was the third party leader, with no sound evidence behind implementing the promise, in full knowledge of the fact it would violate international treaties and, I hope, with some knowledge of the fact that they would limit the mobility rights of Canadians who wanted to travel to the United States. If they say they have used marijuana, they can be banned from travel.

Since I was in high school, when Mothers Against Drunk Driving was set up some 30 years ago, we have been fighting alcohol impairment. Law enforcement has been on the front lines of that. We do not have reliable measures and law enforcement has said it is not ready for the increase in impairment in cannabis it will see. The government is not only rushing this through blindly, but it is disregarding the opinions of our physicians and the positions of law enforcement, including the chiefs of police of Canada, of which the parliamentary secretary used to be a member. It is also disregarding provincial partners.

As a lawyer, as a dad, I want to know that we are debating these serious issues completely in the House, relying on evidence-based decision-making. When our physicians and others are telling us to slow down, we should listen. The Liberals used closure on the assisted dying bill. In The Globe and Mail on the weekend, I saw how the Canadian Medical Association and doctors across the country were having trouble interpreting that law. The Liberals are rushing out of this sense that they know better for Canadians. It is a condescension toward our parliamentary democracy that is unparalleled. All we are asking for is a little more debate. All we are asking for is evidence-based decision-making, but we are still waiting.

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:50 p.m.

Scarborough Southwest Ontario

Liberal

Bill Blair LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Madam Speaker, if I may just correct the member, I was not merely a member of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police; I was the president.

The member purports to value evidence-based policy. I just want to share with him some of the membership details of the people who participated in the government's task force. It had a number of distinguished Canadians, eminently qualified Canadians from the fields of public health, public safety, justice, and problematic substance use. They included, for example, the chief medical officer of health from the province of British Columbia, a former deputy commissioner of the RCMP, a neurologist, and the CEO of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, one of the most internationally, eminently recognized addiction facilities in the world.

I also wanted to very quickly remind my colleague of my experience as a police officer. Three decades ago, police services across the country were busy enforcing gambling laws in every jurisdiction, and governments began to regulate that activity through regulation of lotteries and then casinos.

Today, there is not a single police service with a standing gambling unit, because that activity is now completely regulated through government regulation, and organized crime has been driven from it.

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:50 p.m.

Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Madam Speaker, I respect my friend from Scarborough Southwest. I have talked about his noble service as chief of police in Toronto. I respect that a great deal. I know he was not running for Parliament to be saddled with this mandate, and I think he has tried to handle himself ably, but I will recall for him his quote as chief of police in Toronto to The Scarborough Mirror when he said:

We do not support the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana ...that sends an appalling and inappropriate message and is not going to do anything to reduce the harm in our communities.

When the member was head of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, he actually supported the Conservative Party's position on marijuana. It is only when, as a very effective wing man for his Prime Minister, he is being saddled with this promise that they are having not only to rush, contrary to what physicians, provinces, and law enforcement want, but they are trying to justify it now and limit debate on it.

We can have great debates in this House. All we are asking for is more time and more evidence.

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:55 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his passion in this debate, and certainly his concerns around the health effects on youth. I share those concerns as well.

We know from evidence that 30% of young people are experimenting with marijuana. As we move forward with this new legislation, does the member agree that the tax revenue that is collected from the sale of marijuana should be used for treatment, education, and prevention, to help curb youth from using marijuana?

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:55 p.m.

Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Madam Speaker, one thing that troubles me is that I do think that there is already, with the government, a look beyond the bill and the regime to the revenues from it, and that probably concerns me even more than that the Liberals are rushing this debate through the House of Commons.

We should not be looking at something, which the hon. parliamentary secretary stood in this House just moments ago saying is bad for young people, through the rubric of a revenue stream for government. We should not be trying to generate public good from something we know has public bad to it.

Certainly, I would like to see education. I would certainly like to see a more open and evidence-based discussion of this. On CBC recently, Dr. Brian Goldman, I believe his name is, said what he wants to see even more than the bill is a more informed discussion of the harms. The CMA wants an age of 21. That is the age in Colorado, and when the evidence shows the risks out to 25, setting the age at 18, even if we are giving discretion to the provinces, is simply reckless.

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

11:55 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, never has there been such a great dissonance between the government's stated reasons for legislation and the actual impact of the legislation. What does the government tell us? It is that its goal is to keep marijuana out of the hands of children and to keep the profits out of the hands of organized crime.

What does its legislation actually say? It says that there will no longer be any criminal penalties for someone 12 to 17 who possesses up to five grams of marijuana, and not just possesses it, by the way, but distributes it. That means that a 16- or 17-year-old could take up to five grams of marijuana and be seen wandering around an elementary school carrying that much marijuana, and there would be no basis for a criminal charge. A 17-year-old could give marijuana to a 12-year-old and there would be no basis for a criminal charge.

For context, a study by The New York Times found, in mid-2016, that the average joint contains about .32 grams of marijuana. Therefore, we are talking about it being legal to carry and distribute up to 15 joints.

The government talks about careful regulations to keep this out of the hands of children, but the reality is its legislation would allow homegrown. It would allow someone with children in the home to grow up to four marijuana plants, and it does not, in any way, have storage requirements around that marijuana.

The reality is a very real risk that it would be quite easy for young people to access marijuana that they could get from home, or they could perhaps steal it. Either way, marijuana would be readily available, and young people would be able to possess it without the possibility of being stopped, having it confiscated, or having a criminal charge with respect to the federal legislation.

That is the reality of the law, so how the government can claim that this is about keeping it out of the hands of children is ridiculous. All Canadians have to do is read the legislation to realize that is not what we are talking about at all. Again, possession and distribution of up to five grams would no longer be prohibited for minors, people 12 to 17.

The government talks about a public health approach, but what is striking is that the government members will not even send a clear message about the risks of marijuana. We have the parliamentary secretary talking about the risks, on the one hand, but then we have the Prime Minister talking publicly about his own use of marijuana while a member of Parliament. What kind of message does that send in terms of the public health risks associated with marijuana? We should have leaders in this Parliament who are an example to young people about responsible and healthy behaviour, but we have a Prime Minister who refuses to do that. What does that say about the public health approach of the government, when it refuses to talk about or—

Cannabis ActGovernment Orders

June 7th, Midnight

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

Unfortunately, that is the time allotted for tonight. The hon. member will have about seven and a half minutes left the next time the issue is before the House.

It being midnight, this House stands adjourned until later this day, at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 12:00 a.m.)