Mr. Speaker, of all the ill-considered, unsound, and wacky campaign promises made by the Liberals in the 2015 election campaign, several dozen of which the Liberal government has broken, Bill C-45 most deserves to be broken, or at least seriously postponed.
The House may recall that when the legislation was first introduced, the Liberals assembled five ministers, whom they trotted out and sat down at the table at the press theatre just across Wellington Street, to defend the proposed marijuana legislation. There were the Minister of National Revenue, the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Health, and the government's front guy for recreational marijuana, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.
This was not a celebratory unveiling of new legislation. It looked like middle school detention time. There was not a smile among the group. The “marijuana five” sat grimly during the almost hour-long news conference and not one of the ministers spoke the word “marijuana”. They contorted themselves and their talking points into more coils than a hookah pipe, talking of their concerns about vulnerable kids, of the risks and dangers of the product they were about to make recreational, of any attempt to engage in a price war with organized crime, and repeatedly emphasized that they were not actually advocating marijuana consumption. As I said, not one of the “marijuana five” managed to actually speak the word. Instead, they stuck to the Latin, “cannabis”.
Since then it has all been downhill, and here we are with the Liberals cutting short an essential and important debate for all Canadians to hear by using the legislative guillotine of their Liberal majority.
The parliamentary secretary has reminded the House many times that in his words, “we all care about our kids. We care about their health, their safety, and their outcomes.” The PS has reminded us that he spent most of his adult life fighting crime, that crime and violence can be reduced in society through smart action.
We in the official opposition absolutely recognize the member's service and certainly agree that we all care for Canadian children and that crime and violence can be reduced in Canadian society through smart action, but we strenuously disagree that the Liberals have approached this matter in any way that could remotely be characterized as smart.
The Liberals have rushed to crank out Bill C-45, but in doing so have downloaded almost all of the real responsibilities and costs to the provinces and municipalities. From top to bottom, we have heard serious and worthy concerns from the medical community, from law enforcement, from small town and big city councils, and from provincial legislatures that the Liberals' rush to legalize recreational cannabis by July 2018 is simply going too far, far too fast. It is far too fast for effective education of consumers, young and old. It is far too fast for thorough and rational training of law enforcement officers and agencies. It is far too fast to think through the matters of home-grown marijuana and the volumes that will be produced, access by young children to it, and a variety of landlord-tenant issues.
The proposed federal law allows for four plants per home. In testimony at the health committee, witnesses calculated that four plants of 100 centimetres in height could produce up to 600 grams of marijuana, yet that height limit has now been removed from the bill. No one on the government side has explained how 600 grams fits with the maximum possession limit of 30 grams.
The health committee also heard in evidence from the United States that whereas Colorado allows home grown marijuana, Washington State does not, the exception being for frail medical consumers. The rather stark results are that in Washington state, where no home grown marijuana was allowed, organized crime's share of the marijuana market was reduced to less than 20% in less than three years. In Colorado, where home grown marijuana was allowed, organized crime jumped into the game and continues to flourish.
We learned last week that some provinces will heed the lessons from those two states and some will not. Quebec's draft legislation will outlaw home grown marijuana, with a purchase and consumption age of 18. However, there are other disparities in the area of distribution. Ontario says that it will only allow distribution through its liquor control board, as will Quebec, but Alberta is going to go the free enterprise, retail route, regulated by provincial regulation, but with no set limit on the number of private stores.
Coming back to testimony from south of the border, we also learned from Colorado that there has been a 32% increase in drug-impaired driving, which brings us to the repeated concerns, expressed both individually and collectively, of the Canadian chiefs of police. These chiefs of police say there is no possible way, zero chance, they will be ready to enforce new laws for the legalization of recreational marijuana by next July, or any month soon thereafter. They have pleaded for more time to properly train officers about the new laws, about the science, and the details of what is allowed and what is not. They want more time to certify an adequate number of officers to conduct roadside drug-impaired driving testing.
They have also asked, along with a variety of other groups, for more time for public education. Without a delay, the chiefs of police warn that there will be a gap between actual legalization and what the Liberals originally, grandiloquently proclaimed would be “Canada cannabis day”, before they backed off to a now vague commitment of sometime in July. There is a gap between actual legalization and the ability of the police to properly enforce the spectrum of new laws and regulations. That gap, the police chiefs warn, will give organized crime an opportunity to exploit these new laws and, as Ontario Provincial Police Deputy Commissioner Rick Barnum warned, for organized crime to flourish.
The Liberals claim they will squeeze organized crime out of the marijuana market through predatory pricing, undercutting street prices. The Liberal Government of Ontario is talking about a $10 a gram price, with sales tax on top of that, of course. The federal Liberal government is talking about another tax, a $1 a gram federal levy.
The street dealers, the distributors for organized crime, are laughing out loud about prices in the $8 to $12 a gram range putting them out of business. On radio talk shows in Toronto the last couple of weeks, it was clear that both sellers and buyers in the market today believe that the illicit market will continue to exist, and quite possibly grow. A year ago a marijuana dealer in Seattle in Washington state was selling marijuana for less than $5 Canadian a gram.
Coming back for just a moment to the Liberal government's proposed $1 a gram levy, to be split, it says, 50-50 with the provinces, that is a non-starter. We know it is a non-starter with the provinces, and certainly the municipalities, who are carrying the lion's share of the costs and responsibilities of bringing the Liberals' wacky campaign promise to a too-early reality.
As I said at the beginning of my remarks, of all the ill-considered promises made by these Liberals during the 2015 election campaign, several dozen of which they have reluctantly but realistically broken, Bill C-45 most deserves to be broken, or at least seriously postponed.
