Criminal Records Act  The Liberals have had three and a half years. They knew this day was coming when the legalization of possession for marijuana would be in place. We know the approximate number, 400,000, of Canadians who have criminal records. In 2004, the NDP started talking about the need to expunge these records because of the impact of carrying around a criminal record.

Criminal Records Act  That is not just a wrong that has existed for the past three years since the current government formed office, and that it campaigned on and declared its intention to decriminalize marijuana possession, but also to look at past injustices, when the evidence was before all parliamentarians as to the need to decriminalize marijuana and the hypocrisy that legislature after legislature had shown in dealing with this.

Criminal Records Act  Madam Speaker, as my colleague knows, the NDP put forward a bill on expunging criminal records for marijuana possession, which the Liberals trashed and voted against. Now, instead, we have a very complicated and costly process someone would have to undertake to hopefully get a pardon. As my colleague from Drummond said a little earlier tonight, it is better than nothing, but barely better than nothing, as many witnesses testified.

Criminal Records Act  I unfortunately would have to disagree that in this case the desired outcomes from what the government has proposed or expected from the legalization of marijuana have not played out in reality, as was proposed in policy or in principle.

Criminal Records Act  Madam Speaker, in his statement, the member said that our new policy on the legalization of marijuana had done nothing. I want to remind the member that according to Statistics Canada, one out of every 10 young people between the ages of 15 and 17 will smoke cigarettes. The reason for that is that we injected a lot of money into educating our youth on the effects of smoking, the harms of it and the reasons it was bad for their health.

Criminal Records Act  Madam Speaker, I would like to reply to my colleague, who has a lot of experience in the House. If we had decriminalized marijuana use, we would have introduced legislation to expunge criminal records, that is certain. That is what we have been saying from the beginning. We oppose the criminalization of drug use.

Criminal Records Act  I know my colleague does not agree that this is too little, but we would have preferred an expungement instead of a simple record suspension. It is too late, because the government was in a rush to legalize marijuana and open shops across the country, but it forgot many things, such as prevention, public safety and the fact that the provinces and municipalities were left to deal with difficult situations with no resources.

Public Safety committee  In those circumstances, Health Canada has a role, and there are regulations that apply specifically to those authorized growers of medical marijuana, which are not the licensed producers under the Cannabis Act. There is also a significant role for local regulatory authorities, particularly bylaw enforcement, to address those things.

Public Safety committee  In Toronto, for example, where black people make up 8% of the population, they account for 25% of all persons charged with possession of marijuana between 2003 and 2013. The same is true with respect to indigenous persons. Take Regina, Saskatchewan, where 9% of residents are indigenous but were 41% of all persons charged with cannabis possession.

Public Safety committee  I've asked some individuals that I know who are in business this question: Listen, as an employer, if someone applies for a position with you, and you ask them for a records check or they come in with it, now that marijuana is legalized, are you concerned that the individual has a previous conviction for simple possession of marijuana? The answer I've gotten back from them is that, no, they don't care.

Credit Card Fairness Act  Everyone gets through no problem except for this individual, because border officials saw that he had been charged with simple marijuana possession 25 years ago for one gram of cannabis that he forgot was in his pocket. He is barred from entering the U.S. The band is supposed to play 15 to 20 shows in the United States and they have just lost one of their musicians.

Criminal Records Act  It has been said, and I will repeat, that a Conservative government will not recriminalize marijuana, but we certainly want to ensure there are no undue obstacles or burdens on folks as a result of this change in the law.

Criminal Records Act  All this is for committing an offence that is perfectly legal today. I did not support marijuana legalization, but it seems to me that if the government is going to go down that road, and it has chosen to go down that road, expungement should be part and parcel of that legalization.

Criminal Records Act  I will simply respond by saying that we are in a rush to work on solving a problem that the Liberals created during this Parliament. That is pretty rich. The way they went about legalizing marijuana led to all these consequences. Now we have to rush through other things to fix a problem that the Liberals created. October 21 cannot come soon enough.

Criminal Records Act  Collaborative federalism, which the Prime Minister promised in opposition, was not respected, whether it came to the carbon tax or whether it came to marijuana. I believe both the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario asked him to slow down. The premiers asked because they were putting the retail structure in place. We now have huge shortages, not enough supply and demand.