William Amos

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, January 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian organic industry is one of the fastest-growing agricultural sectors in Canada. We have our farmers and organic food processors to thank for that. They are highly regarded throughout the world. With more than $5 billion in retail sales in 2017, there has been tremendous growth in the organic sector, including in the riding of Pontiac.

Can the Minister of Agriculture tell the House what our government is doing to help our organic farmers?

[Organizations in the Pontiac, December 1st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, we are right in the middle of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign, an initiative that will come to a close on December 10.

All around the world, people are participating in 16 days of activities to raise awareness, share experiences, and condemn violence against women. I invite all of my constituents to participate in this initiative.

As the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women on December 6 nears, I would like to highlight the important work that organizations all over the Pontiac are doing to help women.

These include the Association des femmes immigrantes de l'Outaouais, L'EntourElle, the Table autonome des aînés des Collines, the Clinique des femmes de l'Outaouais, the Centre Mechtilde, Agir Outaouais, CALACS de la Vallée-de-la-Gatineau, the Comptoir St-Pierre de Fort-Coulonge, Maison Halte-femme Haute-Gatineau, Maison Libère-Elles, and more.

The work these groups do to help people in their communities is important, and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

[Cannabis Act, November 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, that is an important question.

Yes, it would be inappropriate for this government to advance a legislative proposal without significant funds, and that is exactly what we are seeing. Canadians expect this. They expect us to have a series of measures that will educate and protect in collaboration with our provincial and territorial partners. This is one aspect I may not have raised sufficiently in my earlier points.

At the end of the day, this is a joint initiative. I have been really impressed by how the provinces have come to the table and been working hard. As people are well aware, there have been meetings of high-level officials every two weeks for many months. That is because we all understand that this is going to take a collaborative effort to bring us to a place where we are focusing on the health outcomes of Canadians, the safety of Canadians, and not simply on slapping criminal penalties on those who otherwise should not be in jail.

[Cannabis Act, November 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

I find this very curious because we now find ourselves in a situation where the NDP opposition is interested in the issue of decriminalization of various drugs.

The Liberal Party is prepared to discuss legalization, very strict regulation, and control of drugs. However, we are not interested in the notion of decriminalization, whether of cannabis or of any other drug.

I concur that we are on the same wavelength when it comes to focusing on public health issues. I see that we agree on that. However, Canadians are not interested in moving forward with decriminalization.

I am convinced that by using an approach based on evidence, Canada will head down the right path one step at a time.

[Cannabis Act, November 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is clear. There is no truth to the statement that the government has done nothing. This government, by virtue of engaging in this very debate, by virtue of bringing forward legislation, and by virtue of campaigning on the need to shift our approach, has brought this debate to the very front and centre of Canadian politics.

I can tell members that when I go to high schools, which I regularly do in the Pontiac, the very first question raised is cannabis legalization and how it is going to work. The youth of today are hungry for education on this issue, because they have been learning it on their own without the help of government for so many years.

We need to change the channel here and to be honest with our kids. I think my nine year old and six year old are going to look back on this era and think, thank goodness, the government took its head out of the sand.

[Cannabis Act, November 21st, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak on Bill C-45, because so many Canadians are talking about it right now. If one goes to a school in the Pontiac, and I have visited several, or to a municipal council to talk about what the federal government is doing that is new, much of the same thing is heard, which is that Canadians are interested and concerned. More than anything, they are open-minded about finding the right path on this issue of marijuana and cannabis legalization. Why? Simply put, it is because they know that what has been done in the past has not worked. At the end of the day, Canadians expect the government to not simply stick its head in the sand but to react to evidence and the problems of everyday communities, where we see rates of the consumption of cannabis by our youth that really concerns them.

It is very important that we are taking this opportunity today to debate this bill and to consider what our communities are saying. I would like to report a bit on what I have heard and speak about why I am hearing support from my constituents in the Pontiac for this bill.

Number one, there is an appreciation that a public health approach is being brought on this matter. At the end of the day, slapping criminal sanctions on individual Canadians for engaging in the consumption of cannabis is an approach that has not worked. It has landed a lot of people in jail, and in particular, it has landed a lot of indigenous Canadians in jail. That is a major concern for constituents in the riding of Pontiac.

It has allowed criminals, organized crime, to take advantage of a market and sell products in an uncontrolled fashion to the most vulnerable in our community. That is simply not acceptable. We need to do better.

I was playing ping pong the other day in a high school in Fort-Coulonge, and I was thinking about how great it was that we were able to play a sport in a school and have fun. I knew that just down hall, at some other point in the day, there would be an opportunity for a kid to buy marijuana. Why? It is because the market is uncontrolled. The market is unregulated, and it is being run by criminals. We can no longer hide, and we can no longer fail Canadians on this important issue.

Our youth deserve protection. It should not be easier to buy marijuana than it is to buy a pack of cigarettes or a six-pack of beer. It should not be that way.

I am proud of our government for acting and for all the consultation it has done. It has consulted with law enforcement, with health experts, and with safety experts, road safety experts in particular. There was a Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation, and pursuant to its advice, this legislation was developed. This was not done in a hurry. It was done after careful consideration.

I am so pleased that caucus members, in particular the parliamentary secretary to the minister of health at the time, came to visit the Pontiac to discuss the concerns of our community. If we are going to get to a place where we legalize but strictly regulate and restrict access to cannabis, we need to do so in a manner that has the full confidence of Canadians.

I appreciate that it is the opposition's job to oppose and to raise issues it is hearing from constituents as well, and that is a good thing. However, this issue of cannabis legalization and strict regulation and control has to be done with a view to the public interest.

I do believe there is a strong consensus emerging in Canada that we can get there by learning from the mistakes and successes internationally, and that we can create a new framework that will ultimately protect our kids, clean up our streets, and get us to a healthier country because, at the end of the day, that is what we all want. We want safer communities, healthier Canadians, and protected kids. It is comforting to many of my Pontiac constituents.

I will admit quite frankly that many seniors in my riding have expressed concerns about whether this will just open the floodgates. The response is no, not at all. In fact, this bill, complete with the investments our government is making, which I will speak to in a moment, is the single best way to tighten the societal measures that will restrict access. When I tell constituents that this bill would make it a specific criminal offence to sell cannabis to a minor and establish significant penalties for those who engage young Canadians in cannabis-related activities, whether consumption or distribution, etc., they understand that this is not a free-for-all. It is absolutely not about that. It is about protecting our communities in a smarter and better way.

I would like to take a moment to talk about investments in public education and law enforcement. This is not just a law that our government is presenting; it is a whole investment program that will ensure that these protections and regulations are put in place. For example, our government promised to invest $46 million over five years in public education, awareness, and surveillance. These additional resources would allow the government to undertake a robust public awareness campaign so that Canadians, especially our children, are well informed about the dangers of driving under the influence of cannabis and other drugs.

The people in our ridings are well aware that, for a long time, young people across Canada have been making the poor decision to smoke, rather than drink, before getting behind the wheel because they think that it is somehow more acceptable or that they will not be caught. We all know that this is not true, but we need an awareness campaign, and our law enforcement officers need to be given the resources they need. We are making sure that happens. We have committed up to $161 million to train front-line officers to recognize the signs and symptoms of drug-impaired driving, build law enforcement capacity across the country, provide access to drug-screening devices, develop policy, bolster research, and raise public awareness of the dangers of drug-impaired driving.

This is a serious set of legislative measures and investments. What we are really doing is investing in the future of a smarter Canada, which does not stick its head in the sand, does not say there is no health issue, and does not ignore the fact that youth consumption of cannabis products is at unacceptable rates, but does accept that we can do better if we look at the evidence, go into it with our eyes open, and tell ourselves yes, we can do better.

[Quebec Municipal Elections, November 2nd, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as you may know, Quebec is holding municipal elections this Sunday. On November 5, the voters of Pontiac will elect 41 mayors, 243 councillors, and 2 prefects. More than 500 residents of Pontiac have thrown their hat in the ring.

I would like to thank all candidates for their participation and for reminding us that all politics truly are local, especially in the Pontiac.

I also want to remind everyone of the importance of voting. Municipal elected officials deal with issues that affect us in a concrete and direct way every day, be they urban planning, the local transit, local road networks, or recreation. However, the participation in the last Quebec municipal elections averaged 47%.

I urge all voters in Quebec to exercise their right to vote this Sunday. Let us not do things by halves. Together, let us cast our ballots, as democracy requires of us.

[Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it feels like this is reflective of the high-handed, unconstitutional approach the previous government took to relations with our indigenous peoples.

I would like to return to the argument the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo made before. She alluded to the fact that there was a global recession, as though that is some kind of justification for unilateral changes to rights that are constitutionally protected. Could the member please articulate why a global recession would justify the breach of the honour of the crown?

[Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Act, October 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo is a colleague of mine on the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, and this is a subject we have debated together. I am curious, though, because there is a question that goes to the heart of the honour of the crown. I would like to get her understanding of the honour of the crown. She was a sitting member in the Harper administration at the time these unconstitutional amendments were made to the law that we are now seeking to amend.

I have enjoyed some magnificent experiences on rivers that would be subject to this bill and some magnificent experiences with first nations, who have shared their salmon and shared their experience and their knowledge. I know that their understanding of the honour of the crown is that we do not unilaterally change all sorts of provisions that go to the heart of the relationship between the crown and indigenous peoples. That is exactly what happened with this law that we would now amend. There is no other way of putting it.

I would really like to understand better, for the sake of the indigenous peoples across this country, what it is about the legislation that is in place that would not be overturned if the court proceedings were to go forward.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, October 18th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, the member asked a good question, because at the end of the day Canadians need to understand the concrete purpose of this legislation.

Department by department, there are sustainable development strategies that are developed pursuant to the existing law, but there are many federal agencies that are not covered within the ambit of this legislation, Canada Post, for example. A whole range of government entities ought to be preparing sustainable development strategies, ought to be contributing toward the sustainable development goals we have established pursuant to international agreement and the work our country has done with countries across the world before the UN.

We need to appreciate that if every department is looking for opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce the impacts on the environment and on social and economic outcomes, through its own purchases, whether it is with a fleet of cars or with respect to building repairs and new building criteria, that these are all opportunities for the federal government to drive our markets toward sustainability outcomes. Canadians will be supportive of that, particularly in the Pontiac, where we have so many civil servants who are working in these buildings and driving these fleets of cars.