Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-93. The bill has come forth from the lack of foresight from the government. The Liberals have tried to hurry this legalization through on a self-imposed political timeline of the Prime Minister's own making. This is done in spite of concerns which municipalities, law enforcement, health care professionals and other stakeholders have had with the legislation around the legalization of recreational marijuana in the first place. As issues arise with the recreational use of marijuana going forward, there have to be due diligence and proper steps taken to protect Canadians. Because of this, I will be very cautiously supporting this bill to see amendments come forward at committee.
By its very nature, the process and rollout of marijuana legalization draws parallels with prohibition and re-legalization of alcohol in Canada during the first half of the 20th century. Prince Edward Island was the first province in Canada to successfully enact an alcohol prohibition statute and the last to repeal it. As such, there are some similarities to draw between the government's re-legalization of alcohol and the government's legalization of marijuana.
In 1900, Prince Edward Island banned the possession or sale of alcohol except for sacramental or medical use. It could be prescribed by a doctor for a variety of ills. If a person were to be charged and found guilty of violating prohibition, he or she would face a $100 fine or two months in jail. This was a stiff sentence at the time, and the premier would often see many letters from convicted persons and their families asking for a pardon or an adjustment of the sentence. By the mid-1930s, Prince Edward Island saw some 1,700 convictions for possession, consumption or sale of alcohol, but after that point, attitudes began to shift on the subject of prohibition and it seemed to be rejected by a growing number of the population. This is very similar to how the social thought on marijuana use has changed over the last decade. Following the shift in social acceptance in both cases, enforcement efforts began to wane.
In the last few years of prohibition, many bootlegging operations were running openly, quite similar to how we saw many illegal marijuana dispensaries openly operate all across the country in the last few years before the legalization of recreational marijuana. Even after the legalization rollout, there are still many illegal dispensaries operating, unlicensed and unregulated, across the country. There seems to be little being done about them. These illegal dispensaries are making it much easier for minors to get their hands on marijuana outside of the particular provincial regulation schemes, either provincially run stores or private businesses.
The island's prohibition era ended with the Temperance Act effective in 1948 which established government liquor stores and regulated sale to residents and tourists through a system of permits and quotas. Many of the arguments we heard in favour of legalization of recreational marijuana were also used back then with the re-legalization of alcohol, everything from combatting the black market to collecting revenue. In both cases, the government's effort to mitigate the black market sale of these substances has had little effect in reality. Bootlegging operations still ran in P.E.I. until a massive crackdown in the mid-2000s, and today the black market accounts for 80% of marijuana sales, making for billions of dollars every year.
In the wake of legalization, there are still so many questions that remain. It is clear that the government was hasty in its rollout of this legislation.
Many groups, including law enforcement, were concerned about an increase in drug-impaired driving after legalization, but the Liberals assured the public that this would not be the case and they would equip police forces properly to deal with and enforce the new law. Now it has come out that the roadside marijuana testing devices that the Liberals quickly approved in time for last year's legalization rollout are giving regular false positives. This failure is taken right out of an episode of Seinfeld.
During testing, these roadside testing devices were giving false positives for subjects who had recently eaten something containing poppyseeds, like a bagel or poppyseed loaf. All of these people tested positive for opiates in their saliva and in their urine. If someone ate a poppyseed bagel and then was pulled over and was tested positive by the police, the person would be arrested and taken to the station for a urine test. If that tested positive, then that person could be charged with impaired driving, all for having eaten a bagel or a slice of lemon poppyseed loaf with his or her coffee at Tim's that morning. This is just one of a long list of failures for the Prime Minister and the Liberal government.
In 2015, we heard the Prime Minister say, as he was looking Canadians right in the eye, that he was going to balance the budget. It was in the same time frame that he admitted the budget would perhaps balance itself. We have learned that neither were true: promise made, promise broken. This will affect Canadians for a generation or more with deficits projected past the year 2040.
The carbon tax is nothing more than a tax grab. It is a tax plan dressed up as an environmental plan. Hopefully, with enough HST charged on that new tax, the Liberals will be able to pay for some of the reckless spending by the Prime Minister.
The same Prime Minister promised transparency and to bring a new level of ethics to politics. However, scandal after scandal has proven that to be a failure. With the illegal vacations on a billionaire's island and giving lucrative fishing contracts to family members, the Prime Minister is anything but ethical. That is not to mention him interfering politically in the criminal prosecution of his friends and Liberal donors at SNC-Lavalin, where he was caught pressuring the attorney general at the time, and when she talked, he fired her.
Most recently, the Prime Minister has continued his string of failures on the world stage with his actions, or lack thereof, on China. Two Canadians have been arbitrarily detained. We have recently heard of an additional Canadian being sentenced to death. China has blocked billions of dollars' worth of Canada's world-class canola and we are adding pork exports to the list. All of this has been going on while the Prime Minister has been absent. He has not even replaced his hand-picked ambassador and we see the effects it has had on Canadian interests and security.
With the Prime Minister's track record of failing to deliver on his commitments, it is important to be diligent and cautious when we are dealing with any piece of legislation that the government has put forward, particularly at this stage in this Parliament, when we know that the Liberals are looking to deliver on at least one of their campaign promises. However, when it concerns the safety of our children and the safety of the driving public, we need to be very diligent in ensuring we get this right.
We hope that at committee we will be able to have the good work done that is necessary to implement a strategy that protects Canadians. I will be very cautiously supporting this bill to see it amended in the best interests of Canadians. We are hopeful this promise, having been made in the best interests of the safety of Canadians, is one promise the Prime Minister is willing and able to keep.