Public Safety committee  Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chair, and members. My name is Annamaria Enenajor. I am a criminal defence lawyer and the founder and campaign director for the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty. The Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty is a not-for-profit advocacy group focused on righting

Public Safety committee  It was created around April 2018. I am a criminal defence lawyer. A lot of my clients face criminal charges with respect to cannabis. One thing that you can tell is that I'm a relatively recently called lawyer. I haven't been practising for very long, but one thing that quite s

Public Safety committee  It's based out of my office in Toronto.

Public Safety committee  I don't have the answer for that, but I know where I can get it. I've been speaking to a group of young entrepreneurs who work out of the Ryerson legal innovation centre in Toronto, who have designed an app that tries to help people streamline and manage better the costs of doing

Public Safety committee  I could reach out to them as well because I know they've created a database for the cause. It varies. I know in my jurisdiction it's around $50 for a local police check. I can't remember whether it's Regina or Winnipeg, but I think it may be Winnipeg where it can be up to $125.

Public Safety committee  Yes, they do.

Public Safety committee  I'm not sure. I haven't really talked to them about the cost model because our discussions were focused on providing it pro bono because we are not-for-profit. They did mention that even with attempting to reduce the costs as much as possible because of the ancillary costs of fin

Public Safety committee  That's certainly one thing we're contemplating, once the government has passed legislation on pardons. We would be very much interested in assisting people as much as possible. However, until we see the model the government is implementing for the purpose of pardons, it will be d

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  Yes, that's correct. It would be very difficult for those prior to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, but schedule II of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is only cannabis.

Public Safety committee  It's cannabis, cannabinoid, cannabis derivatives, cannabidiol. It's the schedule of cannabis derivatives. There is a list of around 10, 11 or 12, and of those there may be only one that is presently not legal.

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  I would say the same thing. We had an open line of communication with Mr. Goodale's office to the extent that we would send him information and ideas. His office would acknowledge the receipt, but we weren't consulted about the actual substance of the bill. The first time we saw

Public Safety committee  My understanding is that it is half that number that reflects people who have a previous cannabis conviction record or a previous criminal record for simple cannabis possession. You said something that might be the reason for that. You said there are about 250,000 people who woul

Public Safety committee  I think that's correct. It doesn't surprise me that the number is so low. I'm surprised because I hope it would have benefited more people, which is one of the reasons we are asking for it to be automatic. If it's just the push of a button, you don't have to go through the proce