Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for his support for the bill introduced by the hon. member for Victoria.
In fact, I cannot answer his question specifically. Part of me believes that we are better off not knowing. It is true that the minister himself often said throughout the process that he wanted to ensure that Canadians were well aware that they should not lie at the border. Often, as Liberal MPs have acknowledged, the process is so complicated in a bill like this that Canadians travelling abroad are not always clear on what they should and should not say.
Personally, I have a hard time understanding why the minister could not simply say to his U.S. counterpart that Canada adopted legislation and all criminal records for simple possession of cannabis have been expunged.
There is something else I want to talk about. The member went to Washington. The American example is very interesting. In jurisdictions that have legalized cannabis, like in San Francisco, where the initial process was similar to what the government is proposing today, almost no one availed themselves of the process. A dozen or so people out of hundreds of thousands of people with a record went through the process. California decided to institute an automatic process to expunge the records. People did not even have to request that it be done.
Other jurisdictions similar to ours have been through this and they managed to do so. If I am not mistaken, the research we did even showed that artificial intelligence has been used to process cases.
In conclusion I would say that the government simply wants to revive the last election campaign. It wants catch phrases and talking points. It has clearly decided to just throw us a bone, but there is not much meat on that bone. It is pretty bare at the moment, which is unfortunate. Jokes aside, actual Canadians are affected by this.
I am proud that we are standing up for them. It is unfortunate that the government is not doing the same.
I thank my colleague for his support.