Health committee  Weber, as it concerns your field of activity. I'd like to talk to you about the movement of certain narcotics. Before marijuana was legalized, the federal government, through the Department of Health, granted permits for growing marijuana for personal and medical use. However, the mayors of rural municipalities in my riding, such as Saint‑Colomban, Mirabel and Sainte‑Anne‑des‑Plaines, whom I would like to say hello to in passing, are noticing that the use of these permits is being abused.

Health committee  This procedure predates the legalization of marijuana. Will the procedures be changed to tighten up the granting of permits? If not, are we going to ensure that people go and buy their marijuana through the legal channel, now that there is one?

Criminal Code  We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

Criminal Code  One of the things that we found was that, ironically, some of them actually had drug convictions for possession of small amounts of marijuana on their criminal records. If we fast forward to today, we can buy it in several locations and it is no longer a criminal offence. There was anguish among young people from either having made a mistake at that time, in a moment, or being around other people who made a mistake.

Criminal Code  Bill C-5 would now guarantee that within two years all of these records will disappear, so that those who are often denied housing, employment, the ability to travel, bank loans and mortgages or the ability to volunteer with seniors or children will actually have those criminal records removed and be able to pursue rehabilitation into society that would allow them to make their way forward in life, just like other Canadians. The Liberals previously set up a record suspension process for marijuana when it was legalized, but I have to point out that that process cleared the records of only 484 of the hundreds of thousands of people with records for simple possession. Bill C-5 will now clear them all.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  There are some things that are just so high risk. We have age limits for alcohol, marijuana, illicit drugs and even driving because we know that children are highly vulnerable in this stage of development.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  The courts apply a sliding scale to capacity, meaning that decisions that carry grave consequences require more scrutiny. In some cases, a total prohibition is necessary to avoid future harms, such as with marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes and illicit drugs. I believe we have a duty to protect adolescents during this time of brain maturation. The legalization of MAID does the exact opposite of harm reduction.

Justice committee  The answer is yes. The reason being is that I live beside a park, and ever since the law has been lax on marijuana, there has been a rise in criminal activity in the park. From my window, I see people using and dealing drugs. I see them speeding away while impaired, and this is happening during broad daylight when children are outside playing.

Justice committee  For example, before the arrival of mandatory minimums.... For example, take the production of marijuana with a mandatory minimum of six months. Oftentimes, new immigrants or people who come to the country without many resources will take the first housing opportunity they can get. Especially in the Asian community, we had elders who took up housing in overpopulated houses where there weren't sufficient rooms.

Canadian Heritage committee  By banning the signs or stopping the selling of signs, we are not achieving our intent. Next door's door is open. It's like trying to ban marijuana. Today we have made it legal. We tried so long to ban it, and it's now legal. We need to stop the abuses of marijuana and we need to stop the promoters of hate. We need to address them at this point.

Small Business  Other countries have figured this out. The United States is beginning to figure it out. It is not marijuana. We want to grow hemp. It is an incredible product. It can be used for many things. I am encouraging the parliamentary secretary, as I have many on that side, to get hemp out of health and into agriculture.

Industry committee  I haven't seen anything whatsoever, and that's a bit of a concern of mine. Even when we brought in marijuana in Canada, a riding like mine got at least an educational flyer. We did public awareness to make sure that people weren't going to be accidentally bringing it across the border and clogging the border up by accident and creating all kinds of problems.

Human Resources committee  There are some things we need to do to work with that. Another thing is the medical use of marijuana. I sat on a health and welfare trust fund where we were able to include medical marijuana as an expense that the plan would cover. [Technical difficulty—Editor] use went up like 60%, and opioid prescriptions went down by 80%.

Health  The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions was at the Standing Committee on Health and said that decriminalizing heroin and other street drugs was no answer to preventing deaths. She also said that the legalization of marijuana did not stop users from buying on the black market and that decriminalization still meant people went to the street to get their drugs. I am going to speak a bit about how there is no silver bullet to tackling this crisis.

Justice committee  I can't speak specifically to the report that you're quoting from, but I want to address the assertion that's been put forward before the committee that it will be a free-for-all in Canada with decriminalization. That is simply not going to happen. It's a different issue, and marijuana was legalized, not decriminalized, but the sky did not fall when marijuana was legalized in Canada. If sex work were to be decriminalized in Canada, it doesn't mean that people are going to turn out and start working in the sex industry in greater numbers than they are right now.