Hedy Fry

[Cannabis Act, June 1st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, one of the stated objectives of this bill is to ensure that we do not have the situation we have now, with the courts being tied up with people who have been charged for possession of a small amount of marijuana. The courts should be used for other things that are far more important.

I visited Europe and drove around Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands with the police. They did not pick up marijuana smokers, nor were they interested in them, because that just blocked up the courts. We need to deal with a lot of the backlog in our courts.

If people are going to be charged with cannabis possession, we have to look at their age, because we are still talking about a legal age. We have clear guidelines for how much cannabis someone is allowed to have on their person. We want to make sure that we are not treating a person with simple possession and a person who is selling on the street in the same way, and it is very clear in this bill that there are going to be distinctions on both.

On what has happened in the past, I do not know. Whether there are going to be any pardons is something the committee can discuss and debate. I am not discussing that right now. We are talking about whether we should legalize this drug, whether we should regulate, and whether we should have clear guidelines in terms of potency and who should be authorized to sell it. This is to get the street vendors off the street. It is to deal with the pushers and organized crime who are making money off our young people. We do not see organized crime selling alcohol on the street anymore.

[Cannabis Act, June 1st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, having helped the Canadian Medical Association to write its dissertation on cannabis, I know, and we all know, that cannabis has the same tar and benzopyrenes that are in cigarettes. Should we make cigarettes illegal, then, because cigarettes have tar and benzopyrenes?

What the Canadian Medical Association is talking about is the age limit. This is going to go to committee, and at committee we can talk about whether the age limit should be 18 or 21. These are the kinds of things that we amend at committee. The government is open to listening to that kind of amendment in terms of age limits.

We do know that in fact the Canadian Medical Association has said that it does not like smoking, but vaping may be a way of maintaining it to get rid of the tar and benzopyrenes. It also talks about the use of cannabis oil and cannabis edibles, so smoking is not the only way.

We cannot control the quality or potency unless we legislate it and we control the potency levels. If people buy it from a street dealer right now, it could have the worst potency and have all kinds of contaminants and additives in it, in the same way that we have fentanyl and carfentanil in opiates.

[Cannabis Act, June 1st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of Bill C-45 not because of ideology, not because of my belief, my presumption, or my assumption, but because it is an evidence-based piece of legislation. When we look at what is going on in Europe and other countries, and look at the evidence where they have decriminalized or legalized marijuana, we see that in fact consumption has gone down.

The bill is extremely important, and the police do not spend their time picking up people who are smoking a joint on the street. They go after organized crime and people who are selling heroin on the street.

Why is this an important bill? UNICEF did a study in 2015 that showed that Canada has the highest number of youth who have access to and who smoke cannabis. At the same time, that same UNICEF study showed that Canada has the lowest number of youth using cigarettes and having access to cigarettes.

What is the difference between cannabis and cigarettes? Cigarettes are legal. Alcohol is legal. What do cigarettes, alcohol, and cannabis have in common? They are psychoactive drugs. They have an effect on one's behaviour. They have an effect on a lot of things people do. The legal drug, tobacco, is the only thing that when used exactly as directed would make someone sick and kill them, yet it is legal. It is being sold in this country. We have brought down smoking to the lowest level in the OECD for cigarettes, because we have taken steps to look at packaging. We have taken steps to ensure that they are not sold to people under the age of 18.

This is what we are trying to do, because when our young people have the highest access in the OECD to cannabis, it means they are getting it. They are getting it illegally from street pushers and users whom we cannot moderate. We do not want people to have to buy substances that have an impact on youth from street dealers. We had an opportunity to deal with opioids under the last government, and we did not. Now the dealers who are selling opioids on the street are lacing them with fentanyl and carfentanil. They do not care about quality control. They do not care about the potency of what they are selling. They do not care about any of those things. They just care about selling, and if people die, who cares?

We want to keep this drug out of the hands of our young people. Why young people specifically? We would legalize and regulate this drug because we know that young people have not had their frontal lobes fully developed and we know that cannabis has an impact on cognitive behaviour, and therefore, on the frontal lobe. We do not want them to use cannabis.

Let us look at the three drugs that are psychoactive, two of which are legal at the moment. We have prohibitions on the sale of alcohol, and we have prohibitions on the sale of tobacco. We know that tobacco causes disease and it kills. I do not know of any particular medical properties that tobacco brings to anyone. There are no benefits to using tobacco. There are only side effects.

Let us look at alcohol. We have heard arguments that if we drink a glass of red wine every day it will help us. The jury is out on that. There are still some medicinal benefits for alcohol, but there are negative effects too. MADD would tell us that, in fact, the largest number of motor vehicle accidents in the country come from drunk drivers. We have had to legalize alcohol to ensure young people do not get a hold of it, look at tracking who drinks it, and make sure we set very clear guidelines for what the level of alcohol should be if one is driving, etc.

Cannabis does have medicinal properties. We know it is used for pain, for chronic disease, and it brings down levels of anxiety. We also know that cannabis oil is used in certain amounts for people with epilepsy. Therefore, we know there are medicinal properties, but like anything that has good effects, there are side effects. What we know is that these side effects impact youth more than anyone else, and we do not want youth to have access to it. Therefore, we are doing what we successfully did with alcohol and with tobacco to ensure that young people do not get hold of it.

Why do we have the lowest number of people smoking cigarettes in our country? It is because it is legal and regulated, and we are ensuring that young people cannot buy them. We have very clear penalties and guidelines for anyone who sells it to young people. It is very clear. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties.

This is the reason the bill is so important.

The bill also authorizes who is allowed to sell, just like with cigarettes and alcohol. If one is an unauthorized seller, for example a street dealer, then that seller will face a penalty of 14 years, especially if he or she sells to a young person. It is a 14-year penalty for people who use a young person to sell cannabis on the street.

We will be tracking this. Like MADD we will be able to educate people about the use of cannabis and the dangers of cannabis. We will be able to track who buys it. We will be able to keep pace with what is going on. All sorts of penalties are going to be available to people who sell cannabis to people who are under age or anybody who is an unauthorized seller.

This is about evidence-based information. This information picks up evidence from other countries to see what has happened. It looks at the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in our own country, and it asks what we did not do. We are not doing anything at the present time. Fifty-one per cent of young people in this country are using cannabis and that level keeps going up. Whatever we are doing right now is not working. When we have the highest level, and I want to harp on this, of young people in the OECD having access to and using cannabis, then we are not doing anything right.

Let us get it right. Let us look at our own evidence in Canada with regard to the sale of cigarettes and alcohol. Let us look at European studies and results. We can then say we are using evidence-based information to stop cannabis from getting into the hands of our young people, who are particularly susceptible because of the cognitive impact of cannabis on them.

I have heard people say that we presume this is going to happen. We put money in the 2017 budget just for a public awareness campaign. We put money in the 2017 budget just to make sure that we have all the money we need for the tools that we need. We are going to train police on how to test for levels of impairment if someone is caught driving with cannabis.

As a physician, I can tell the House that I do not know very many people who were caught impaired after smoking cannabis. Someone has to smoke a lot of cannabis to get to the impaired level, and that means the individual will fall asleep at the wheel of the car before the ignition is even turned on. We know what cannabis does.

We need to do this because it is important. We need to prevent our youth from getting access to a drug that impairs their cognitive ability when their frontal lobes have not completely developed. We need to authorize who sells it just like we do with the other drugs I have talked about. We need clear penalties to deal with their use.

This is clear. I do not understand what the debate is about. This is an easy thing to understand. There is a problem, there is evidence on how to deal with the problem, and that evidence shows success in other drugs that we have legalized. It is a fait accompli. It is simple. We are trying to get at a simple thing. We are trying not to allow cannabis to get into the hands of our youth. The only way we can do that is to legalize it and regulate it.

[Committees of the House, May 31st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage entitled “Main Estimates 2017-18”.

In accordance with its order of reference of Thursday, February 23, the committee has considered the various votes in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018, and reports the same.

[Simon Fraser University, May 15th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, B.C.'s Simon Fraser University is one of Canada's top innovators. It hosts VentureLabs, which is B.C.'s largest business accelerator. The unique industry partnership office gives students the tools they need to commercialize their ideas and drive economic growth. Entrepreneurship is integrated into most programs.

Today some SFU students are in Ottawa to discuss a vision for Vancouver's own innovation supercluster, taking the dreams of today to create the reality of tomorrow, and solidifying Canada's position in the global innovation race. In budget 2017, our government demonstrated that it is firmly on their side.

[Canadian Medical Association, May 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as both an MP and a physician to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Medical Association.

In 1867, only three months after the birth of Canada, the CMA was formed, with just 164 physicians. Today the association represents more than 85,000 physicians and is a strong national advocate for patient health and for a system of health care that is based on evidence, measurable outcomes, and accountability.

Yesterday was Doctors Day in Ontario and Nova Scotia, and it is time to proclaim, on this 150th anniversary, a national physicians day. I hope all members in the House will support a motion to that effect, which I will bring forward.

Canada's physicians and the CMA have served patients well for a century and a half. I would like all members to—

[Infrastructure, April 4th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians know that transit is very important and critical to a high quality of life, getting to work on time, and getting home after work to meet their families. In British Columbia, many communities rely on ferries in order to do this kind of communication and transportation. Could the Minister of Infrastructure tell us how and what the government is doing to increase connectivity and safety for ferry users.

[The Budget, March 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I go back to what I originally said, that this was a good Liberal budget.

Liberals do not tend to say they will do everything in one year, damn the consequences and spend as much money as they want. We have to look at the balancing of budgets, bringing down deficits, while at the same time increasing the ability of businesses and others to spend more money so we are building the economy while waiting over a period of time so we can get to do the things we want to do.

I draw the attention of the House to past Liberal budgets under the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien. Every year, while we would say we would do this in certain years, we would add to the amount in the past because we would have gained that ability to bring down deficits and debt so we could say that we could now add to this.

While the member says that $11 billion over 10 years is not enough money, it is a start. It puts down the marker that says we will do this and we will build on it. We will also have to work with provinces, and Quebec's best practice is always a good one at which to look. Nobody has said that we will reinvent the wheel.

[The Budget, March 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the term “selective hearing” is an interesting one, and that is a prime example of selective hearing. I did not say that child care was available for those who chose to take it. I said expanded maternity leave and expanded parental leave for those who chose to take it. I did not say child care was the choice. However, we always know that child care is a choice.

My colleague talked about increased taxes. This Liberal budget did not increase taxes. The Liberal budget showed that in 2016, by decreasing taxes for the middle class, we put an increased amount of money in their pockets. Retail spending and spending for household appliances increased. Spending fosters work. Spending expands business. That showed it worked.

Finally, on the issue of early childhood development and learning, the member should read Fraser Mustard, and every book that has been written about the early brain and the childhood development of the early brain in early learning.

[The Budget, March 23rd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today proudly to support this budget. I think it is everything one would expect of a good Liberal budget. In 2016, the budget looked at how we would help the middle class and those hoping to join it get more money in their pockets. The child benefit and the lowering of taxes for the middle class facilitated that. If we look at the data a year later, we find that there was an increase in spending on household items and in general retail spending. It achieved what it wanted to achieve.

Budget 2017 is focusing on jobs, focusing on how people in the middle class can get good, solid, permanent, well-paying jobs and how industry and sectors that create jobs can actually create more of those permanent, well-paying jobs for people to get. This is a budget that builds on the last budget. This is a budget that says that here is how we move people into that place where they get such jobs.

We know it is not enough just to say that we want to create new jobs. We know that government in itself does not create new jobs. However, we can create a climate. We can foster and give initiatives to businesses and industries to create jobs. We know that in Canada we have good education and good workers who are intelligent and understand the issues. We need to move into the new sectors of work, the global economy. We know that innovation is where we are going to get Canadian citizens to find jobs.

In speaking to that, we also needed to look at a gendered budget. How do women fare in this new world of work? How are women going to get opportunities? We saw with infrastructure that only 2% of women work in infrastructure projects and construction. We know the reason they do not. They have told us over and over that this kind of work needs flexibility. It needs the ability to sometimes spend long hours working, and sometimes not working because of the weather. Therefore, being able to put $7 billion over 10 years into fostering not just child care but good learning and development for children for the next generation is the most important thing we can do in helping women get into the workforce and the well-paying permanent jobs we are talking about.

By the way, l am just reminded that I am splitting my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.

It is not only child care. It is looking at how we can help families adjust to the world of work so that they can be more flexible. It is allowing women who are pregnant to have another four weeks of maternity leave if they choose, and I add that everything is if they choose, and also ensuring that we move from 12 months to 18 months of parental leave that is flexible. Parents can decide who wants to stay at home and who wants to balance that world of paid work and that world of helping to raise their children. We have set a standard kind of formula for people to make a decision on how they do that.

The second part of getting people to work is to create ways in which people can have access to skills training and post-secondary education. It is to facilitate a clear way of getting adults who are already in the workforce but only have part-time work and are not in that world of good-paying jobs to go back to university. We are suggesting student grants that would let people who are working part-time get access to that kind of training.

We also know that EI has been changed so that if people are working in particular jobs, but they are not long well-paid jobs, they may be able to get training at the same time they are working on that older job.

We are also looking at how student loans can become a flat-rate student loan system. In the old days, people could not qualify if they owned a home or if they were working part time. We are now saying that if people own a home and are working part time and have children, they can have access to an expanded flat-rate student loan program. This is about getting people into the workforce.

Now we have to talk about how to get those jobs created. Helping industry and businesses move into this new world of work is something we are going to do.

We are talking about innovation in areas in which Canada already has a strong reputation in those sectors. We are focusing on five sectors. This is not the end of it. We are starting by focusing in areas.

There is agri-food. This is good news for my province of British Columbia. We are looking at advanced manufacturing, which is good news for people in Ontario and in Quebec.

We are also looking at clusters in biotech and health sciences. British Columbia biotech and health sciences are creating clusters and hubs of new innovation in health sciences. Of course, we are looking at pharmaceuticals and creating hubs for delivering that. We have Triumf in British Columbia. All these groups are going to benefit in creating these new kinds of jobs.

There is also clean tech. The Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development recently came to British Columbia. British Columbia has only about 13% of the Canadian population, but we are creating 33% of the high-tech jobs. Helping us to move forward into those areas, looking at innovation and clean technology, will not only benefit my province but every province.

One thing that has always been a priority for British Columbia is housing. Housing prices are going beyond anyone being able to afford a home. By putting what I consider to be a good amount of money in these areas, the federal government is getting back in to national housing, working with provinces and territories, municipalities, NGOs, groups that create housing, the private sector, and other areas where housing is being created. However, we know we cannot do everything in one, two, or even three years. What the minister heard when he did his consultation on national housing, was that we should focus on the most vulnerable.

The budget will do exactly what the minister heard. It focuses on seniors, on mental health and addictions, veterans, and housing for aboriginal people. We have a huge urban aboriginal population in the city of Vancouver. The west also has a huge urban aboriginal population, as well as on reserve, that need access to good housing.

We are also back again to this gendered budget, in which we say that a lot of women fleeing violence are going to be on that list of priorities.

We also recognize that we cannot make good public policy unless we have good data. We are putting $40 million in to Statistics Canada to develop to a housing statistic framework to look at how we get data and not just perception, perception that says foreign buyers are driving the prices up, etc. We need good data to find out who is doing what, where, when, and what is needed, how mortgages are affecting first-time buyers.

Then we are looking at that full spectrum of housing by putting in extra money. We are expanding the homelessness framework, with $2.1 billion. We are looking at the full spectrum of needs, from homelessness to SROs, which are single room occupancies, to affordable rental housing, which at the moment is where the bottleneck occurs. Being able to help young people and first-time buyers to buy a little starter home, working with CMHC and core housing is the kind of spectrum and partnerships we are building in creating housing.

How does housing help? Housing is a human right, the ability for a family to have a safe place to bring up their kids, an ability for those kids when they grow up to get a good education and skills training. We are looking at that whole continuum of how we help Canadians achieve the kinds of opportunities they need to fulfill their potential, to get work, to find good jobs, to spend money, which helps the economy. We are looking at how businesses in this new world of work actually get that work to the people.

I am so proud of the budget. On transit and getting people to and from work, the Broadway line that will be built in my riding and extended into Vancouver Quadra is great news. Our mayor has already issued a press release saying how pleased he is with some things in the budget, which will fulfill the needs of the people in Vancouver, and the needs of other mayors and people in British Columbia.

This budget not only serves British Columbia well, it not only serves the city of Vancouver well, it serves the whole country well. I am proud of this good, well-thought-out, comprehensive Liberal budget.