Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank my hon. colleague across the way for the support for this important piece of legislation. I recognize that there have been advocates for this legislation for a great deal of time. As with all bills that I have and that our government has, we will

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to answer this question with respect to our objectives around the legalization of cannabis, its strict regulation, and restricting its access to achieve the objectives of keeping it out of the hands of children and the proceeds out of the

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague across the way talking about how transformative this is. This is necessary to ensure we move beyond the status quo, which simply is not working. It is easier for a young person to get a joint than it is to get a bottle of beer or access

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, to answer the question around why we do not simply decriminalize, to simply decriminalize right now, absent a comprehensive regulatory framework, will not achieve the objectives we are seeking to achieve with the legalization of cannabis. We need to have a regulatory

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, I completely reject that accusation. Of course we care about the health and safety of Canadians. That is the whole premise and the basis upon which we are putting forward this legislation to legalize cannabis, to strictly regulate it, and to restrict access it to ens

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be working with my colleagues the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Health to address the exact issues that are being raised in creating a public awareness campaign about the impacts of cannabis smoking on the developing brain. We are not

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, we have done substantive consultation in this regard. Substantial consultation was conducted through a task force that received over 30,000 responses. This task force of very learned members in the area of public safety, health, and justice submitted a report with 80

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, we have taken on the task of legalizing, strictly regulating, and restricting access to cannabis in order to achieve our public policy objectives of keeping it out of the hands of children and the proceeds out of the hands of criminals. We have engaged in a substan

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, as I stated before, but will say it again, there is nothing in the legislation that provides a legal means for young people to obtain cannabis. With respect to the realities and taking a public health approach, we have to draw the distinction to ensure we have inform

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the hon. member across the way agrees with the bill. It is a monumental shift and a monumental change. That is why we have taken a substantive amount of time engaging with the task force, engaging with experts in the areas of public health, safety, and j

Cannabis Act  Mr. Speaker, we have great respect for this place and we appreciate the two and a half days of debate and discussions we have had on Bill C-45. I very much look forward to the next number of hours of debate in this place. I look forward to the bill passing through the parliamen

Marijuana  Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to legalizing cannabis, strictly regulating, and restricting access to it in order to keep it out of the hands of children and the proceeds out of the hands of criminals. We have undertaken substantive consultation, put together a substan

Government Appointments  Mr. Speaker, I am very confident in the process that we put in place for judicial appointments and for constituting the judicial advisory committees. I have appointed 67 substantive, meritorious, judicial appointments across the country. I look forward to continuing to make more

Government Appointments  Mr. Speaker, I am committed to ensuring that Canadians maintain their confidence in the criminal justice system. We are taking many measures to ensure this confidence is upheld, including putting in place an open and transparent judicial appointment process and reconstituting the

Criminal Code  moved for leave to introduce Bill C-51, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act. Mr. Speaker, I would like to table at this time, in both official languages, a charter statement related to the bill j