Honourable senators, I wish to speak today on the implications of Bill C-45 for cross-border travel.

During second reading, I raised my concerns over the many failures of this legislation, namely, that it does not outline how it accomplishes its stated goal of keeping marijuana out of the hands of young people and that, in general, it just isn’t ready. Additionally, following the testimony we heard at the Foreign Affairs Committee, I am certainly not convinced the issue of border implications has been completely and adequately considered, despite the profound ramifications.

Everyone recognizes that Canada’s prosperity is directly linked to the strength of our trading relationship with the United States. Global Affairs Canada itself has noted that:

Secure and efficient flow of legitimate goods and people are vital to our economic competitiveness and mutual prosperity.

What does that “secure and efficient flow of legitimate goods and people” consist of? In part, it consists of over 30 million vehicles driving across the Canada-U.S. border every year. We should all recognize that any interruption, even any slowdown, of that type of traffic would have very serious implications for the Canadian business communities, Canadian workers and Canadian jobs.

That’s on the economic and trade side. But Canada’s cooperation with the United States has also been based on shared values. Laws pursuing complementary objectives and a shared approach to law enforcement have been integral to our partnership to ensure the security of our two democracies. All Canadian governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, have worked to deepen such cooperation with the aim of making travel and trade easier.

Initiatives like Bill C-23 — the land pre-clearance bill, which we adopted in the Senate only a few months ago — and Bill C-21 are particularly important in the current political climate, given that we now face a more protectionist American administration. So important is our economic relationship with the United States that it might be appropriate for every major Canadian government initiative to undergo an evaluation as to whether it advances or undermines our cross-border relationship.

Were we to evaluate Bill C-45 in that way, how would it measure up, colleagues? To answer that, we need to carefully consider what expert witnesses told senators at both the National Security and Defence Committee and the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee over the past several months. At the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee, on which I sit, the testimony from the Canadian officials was not ambiguous: For any Canadian seeking entry into the United States, the past use of a substance that is illegal under U.S. federal law is a ground for admissibility to the United States for life.

I think the statement by Jennifer Lutfallah, Director General of Enforcement and Intelligence Programs at the Canada Border Services Agency stated at the Foreign Affairs and International Affairs committee is worth quoting:

When legalization of cannabis is done in Canada, it will remain, obviously, a federal offence at the U.S. level. Right now the United States has the authority to declare someone inadmissible for cannabis use as well as other crimes related to cannabis.

At the end of the day, we’ve had discussions with our counterparts at Customs and Border Protection and they have indicated that they are not changing their posture at the border.

Based on this reality, Global Affairs Canada tabled with the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee the message that it intends to convey the following to Canadians once Bill C-45 becomes law:

You may also be denied entry to a country if you have previously used drugs, including cannabis after it becomes legal in Canada, that are considered to be illegal in that country.

That many Canadians would be very surprised by this, though some senators may claim this is not new. But with the legalization of marijuana, many Canadians will not imagine that doing something legally in Canada would be grounds for being inadmissible to the United States. I think most will be shocked at that.

There will be some senators in this chamber who will want to condemn the Americans strongly for that. I understand that sentiment. Obviously Canada has the sovereign right to draft its own laws. However, so does the United States of America. They also have the sovereign right to undermine who they allow to cross their own border.

Before we act, we should probably take a moment to consider this issue from an American point of view. From the perspective of the American federal government, where marijuana use remains a crime, the legalization of marijuana in Canada will almost certainly provide new opportunities for organized crime to traffic marijuana from a jurisdiction where it is legal to one where it is illegal.

In legalizing marijuana, Canada will be, by its own admission, violating three international drug conventions it has signed. There is no ambiguity on that, even if witnesses before our committee disagreed how serious the violation would be. From the perspective of the American federal government, Canada’s violation of the three drug conventions is likely to be seen as more, rather than less, serious.

I know some senators may point to the legalization of marijuana in some American states, but we need to remember that at the federal level the perspective is different. The perspective of American federal administrations, whether Democrat or Republican, have been fairly consistent on this issue. It would be naïve for us to base our policies on the hope that the perspective of the American federal authorities will change.

What are the consequences of potentially increased American scrutiny at the border?

Professor Christian Leuprecht of the Royal Military College filed a written brief with the National Security and Defence Committee, stating that the legalization of cannabis is likely to augment the criminal export of marijuana from Canada. He predicted that as U.S. inspections increase, so too will wait times at the U.S. border and so too will the cost of doing business. He said:

The legalization of cannabis will come at the expense of the efficiency of cross-border trade. Economically, the legalization of cannabis is thus a poor efficiency trade-off in terms of crossborder commerce.

Senators, we need to ask ourselves what the impact of this could be on Canadian businesses, particularly those that depend on just-in-time delivery to the United States. What immediately comes to mind is the auto sector, with shipments that in the Windsor-Detroit corridor, for instance, are highly reliant on bridges or tunnels that can become bottlenecks if subject to long delays and line-ups.

In keeping with the trend I spoke of during second reading, these issues have been completely inadequately considered by the government. The government undertakes many different analyses of legislation before it is introduced, but it is clear that when it comes to Canada’s most important trading relationship, virtually no analysis has been undertaken on the potential impacts, and no answers have been given by Foreign Affairs.

The shortcomings, as far as the border implications are concerned, are particularly glaring, given the challenges posed by a more protectionist American administration. In this context and in order to protect Canadians at the border and also to ensure our trading relationship is not inadvertently undermined, it is imperative that the bill be amended to ensure the government presents its plans to protect Canada’s interest at the border.