Mr. Speaker, that is a very important question. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify this.
With respect to those offences, they were expunged earlier as a result of an acknowledgement that certain criminal charges and the criminal law were in fact unconstitutional and were a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act. In acknowledgement that the application of those laws was in fact a violation of both our laws and our human rights legislation, we believed that expungement of those records and dealing with them in that way was the appropriate path forward.
I would differentiate that with the legislation that existed in this country for over a century with respect to the criminal prohibition of the possession of cannabis. That law has been ruled many times to have been constitutional and not in violation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It has also never been suggested that it is a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act. That law was properly enacted, it was properly enforced, those prosecutions were properly conducted and those convictions were properly registered. That is a fundamental difference from those charges that related to the LGBT community and that is why we treated them in a very different way.
Those offences and those convictions for cannabis have had a disproportionate impact on the individuals who have those convictions. In particular, I am happy to acknowledge, as I acknowledged when I first spoke of this issue in the House nearly two years ago, that this disproportionate impact is something that requires redress. The impact on minority communities, indigenous communities and poor communities has been disproportionate and the impact on those individuals has been more significant in the quality and the outcome of their lives. Therefore, we believe that the right thing to do is to move—