Honourable colleagues, I rise today to speak to Bill C-45, a bill legalizing the use of marijuana.

I’ve been deliberately quiet on this bill up until now. Not because I don’t have strong feelings on the legalization of illicit drugs but because, as a legislator, it is incumbent on me to put those feelings in check and listen to the information being presented to me. I wanted to hear from experts. I wanted to hear from the ministers and from my colleagues. Now that I have, I’m more convinced than ever that this is a step in the wrong direction, if I’ve ever seen one.

I have listened to the sponsor of this bill and several of my colleagues. I have listened to the Ministers of Health, Justice and Public Safety. None of what I’ve heard has answered any of the questions a lot of Canadians, myself included, have about this bill. If anything, we seem to be left with more questions than answers.

Chief among them: How and why? Let’s start with the how. How is this legislation going to do the number one thing the government says it will do — prevent young people from accessing marijuana? How? The theory is that legalizing marijuana will make it more difficult for kids to access the black market. Okay. How?

I’ve yet to hear an actual explanation. I’ve yet to hear even an attempt at an actual explanation. What I do hear a lot is that the current approach isn’t working. Senator Mitchell just said that at the start of his speech. That doesn’t answer my question. It does raise other questions, like how do we know our current approach isn’t working? And did we look at any other approaches as solutions? I’ll get to those questions shortly.

But first, how does legalizing marijuana lead to a decrease in use among youth? How do we know it does? While some people point to other jurisdictions to show a correlation between legalization and a decrease in youth usage, the science is far from settled. A major hurdle, as we heard from the Minister of Health, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, during Committee of the Whole, is the difficulty in establishing accurate baseline statistics. As the minister stated, there is a challenge in getting accurate research on usage because of the illegality of marijuana in Canada.

The same was true for Colorado, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, providing a good case study for what we might expect here in Canada.

Andrew Freedman, Colorado’s former director of marijuana coordination, has said:

One of the things we didn’t do as well as we could have is set great baseline data. We were not measuring some of the things that were really important to us, like, how many kids were being suspended from school for marijuana? We were not measuring that, which meant we didn’t have a way to know if that changed after we legalized. . . . Making sure you’re measuring things that matter to you so you can change policy along the way is really important.

So have we done that here? Are we learning from Colorado’s mistakes? Have we or are we doing all the research we can to improve our chances of setting accurate baseline data? Not according to Parliamentary Secretary Bill Blair, who has been stick-handling this bill through Parliament. I find it interesting that during a recent funding announcement for research, Mr. Blair said: “There is an absence of evidence that should be informing policy.” That’s from the government’s own pointman on this legislation, colleagues.

As for any correlation between Colorado’s legalization of marijuana and the rates of usage among young people, Dr. Larry Wolk, the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Public Health and Environment in the State of Colorado, said:

What it looks like is folks who may have been using illicitly before are using legally now, and teens or youth that were using illicitly before, it’s still the same rate of illicit use.

In other words, legalizing an activity doesn’t mean the activity is no longer occurring; it just means it’s not occurring illegally.

And it’s not just Colorado. As pointed out by my colleague Senator Seidman in a question to the Minister of Health, research from around the world suggests that marijuana legalization will lead to more usage among young people. Senator Seidman cited the PLOS ONE study from 2015, which shows 38 countries where marijuana liberalization is associated with higher levels of regular marijuana use amongst teenagers. For a government that said it would always take a science-based approach, they seem to be cherry-picking research on marijuana usage to suit their narrative.

And in the case of the mother of all stats as far as this legislation is concerned, this current government can’t even tell us where it comes from, never mind the methodology applied. I’m referring to the claim that Canada has the world’s highest marijuana usage among young people. That is the impetus for this legislation, after all. It is the impetus for the constant pressure to pass the legislation forthwith, and it is that claim on which the government bases its argument that our current approach isn’t working. However, there seems to be a great deal of confusion as to the origin of the statistic and therefore the validity of all claims originating from it.

We’ve been told time and again in this place that the statistic comes from a 2013 Unicef report. That reports sites Canada’s Department of Justice 2008 as its source. Yet when a Blacklocks Reporter asked Justice Canada about the origin and methodology of the statistic, the department replied:

Given the time that’s lapsed and the lack of specific context on the source, we’re not sure where the 2008 statistics cited would have come from.

How can this government claim our current approach isn’t working and that we need to legalize marijuana based on a statistic that doesn’t stand up to the most basic of scrutiny, which is where does it come from and what methodology was used? Remember, colleagues, I asked the government leader to provide that methodology in this chamber. It’s been a number of weeks, and I’m still waiting. I think for many Canadians I could probably stop right here and on that basis alone they would feel this legislation is not ready. But, colleagues, I’m just getting started.

Earlier I asked what other approaches were considered by this government, if any, or was it just legalization or bust? Senator Carignan asked the Minister of Health if her government had looked at measures implemented in Norway that have resulted in that country having the world’s lowest rate of usage among young people. Wouldn’t that be worth studying, worth looking at? We didn’t get an answer. I would like one. I believe Canadians deserve one.

I want to go back to Parliamentary Secretary Bill Blair's research funding announcement for a moment. If this legislation is so very important that it must be passed without delay, why is this government just now making research dollars available and just now embarking on crucial research? For instance, just before we rose a couple of weeks ago, colleagues, Statistics Canada announced they would be conducting an analysis of municipal wastewater to provide a more accurate picture of non-medical marijuana use by Canadians. From their release, Statistics Canada said:

Given the difficulty in obtaining this information and the level of data required by data users, Statistics Canada is using non-traditional methods to acquire as much information as possible. One such method is the use of wastewater analysis to measure drug consumption levels in the general population.

And here’s the kicker, colleagues. This type of research is not new. It’s been performed in various countries for over a decade.

That leaves me shaking my head. We have a piece of legislation before us that we’re being told we must pass without delay, told that the safety and well-being of our children depend on it. It is legislation that was, by their own admission, a priority of this government, and only now is this government beginning to undertake critical research? Why? See, there’s the why. Why, if this is so important, would we just be doing this now? This government has admitted that there is a challenge in establishing accurate baseline data, yet here’s the type of research that has been used successfully to help mitigate that challenge and we’re just now beginning to undertake that study? That’s irresponsible.

I mean, it’s not like this government hasn’t had time. As Senator Pratte is so fond of pointing out, it was a promise in their campaign platform and they’ve been in power for almost three years, so why are they just now undertaking research that is so crucial to this legislation?

And research isn’t the only thing lagging. We heard a lot from the ministers when they were here about the importance of education and that educating young people about the dangers of marijuana use and of driving high were a major component of this bill.

While Budget 2018 announced $62.5 million in education initiatives, this money will not start to flow until after this government’s legislation timeline. Why the delay again? Why are we not seeing any education initiatives on television, radio, in newspapers and social media? Why are we legalizing marijuana before allowing some of that education to start taking place first and foremost?

Again we need to look no further than Colorado to see that this approach is ill-advised. Minister Petitpas Taylor herself said if there’s one thing Colorado wished they had done differently when they legalized recreational marijuana, it is that they would have made sure that public awareness was in place beforehand. Yet when asked by Senator Smith about her government’s timeline for implementing their education program, Minister Petitpas Taylor responded that they were in the process of again developing the program. That’s great. They’ve not only not implemented it, they haven’t even developed it yet.

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Another problem: Have they followed their own task force’s recommendation that Indigenous communities and elders be consulted on the design and delivery of public education? Has this government fully considered the impact this legislation is going to have on Indigenous youth in this country?

The ministers said they have consulted, and no doubt they have. However, as I sat here and listened to Senator Patterson’s speech, what I heard gave me great pause. What I took away from that speech was that, much like every other aspect of this legislation, this government has done the bare minimum when it comes to preparing for the reality of its implementation. What they have done is left the lion’s share of the heavy lifting to the provinces and territories. Senator Patterson made it quite clear that mayors across Nunavut do not feel like they were heard. They do not feel they are ready. They worry immensely about the young people in their communities. For a government that says it is committed to reconciliation with Indigenous people in this country, I’m actually quite taken aback that they don’t appear to be taking their concerns more seriously. In that regard, I can’t help but think back and ask why. Why did this chamber refuse to have the minister of Indigenous affairs come here to testify at the Committee of the Whole?

I’m going to take the issue of education initiatives one step further and go back to the question of whether this government considered other approaches for decreasing the use among young people. As a deterrent, did this government even contemplate an approach of focusing more on education of youth about the dangers of marijuana? We have had great success with that approach when it comes to cigarette smoking. Smoking among Canadian young people has decreased thanks in large part to education. And yet public health experts, including the Canadian Cancer Society, warn us that legalizing marijuana will undermine that success because of the mixed messaging and renormalizing of tobacco use.

The topic of cigarette smoking brings me to another question raised during Committee of the Whole by my colleague Senator Carignan. Using the example of lawsuits against tobacco companies, Senator Carignan asked if this government had sought any legal opinions on the risk of class action lawsuits against the Government of Canada, suits that could result in taxpayers being on the hook for billions of dollars. The answer? No. Despite having almost three years in power, this government has not sought a legal opinion on the very real risk that comes along with the legalization of marijuana. Why? Why have they not done so? Over and over again, we keep hearing about the importance of not just passing this legislation but doing so quickly. “It’s urgent,” they say. Yet it is clear this government hasn’t done its part to show Canadians that this legislation is the right course of action and that it is being undertaken in the most responsible of ways.

They don’t have the science to support their claims that we even need this legislation, let alone that it will do what they claim it will. They began crucial research just a few weeks ago that would serve to best inform our decisions on this bill. They haven’t developed — never mind implemented — an education program. They haven’t sought prudent legal opinions.

And what about the impact of this legislation on those who will have to enforce it? More and more police chiefs have come out across Canada saying they’re not ready. They’re saying they don’t have the training in place; they don’t have the equipment for detection of drug impairment; they don’t have the funding for the training or the equipment.

And what about the courts? We’re told another benefit of this legislation is that our courts will no longer be clogged up with people fighting marijuana-related criminal charges. But, again, as my colleague Senator Batters pointed out, if anything, this legislation will result in the courts being more backed up because of the resulting impaired-driving charges.

When Senator Batters questioned the Minister of Justice about why her government chose legalization rather than decriminalization to address the backlog issue, again Minister Wilson-Raybould did not provide an answer.

Lots of questions, few, if any, answers. At the end of the day, this legislation aspires to great things but falls way short. This legislation is not ready, colleagues, and Canadians aren’t really for it, not in its current form, not even close.

I started my speech today asking how. I will end it by asking why. Why are we rushing this legislation? Is it to satisfy an election promise by a government that has broken so many of them? Is it to pay for promises to come, promises of a tax-and-spend government that knows no bounds? Are we pushing through legislation to pay for this government’s out-of-control spending, paying for it on the backs of our children and grandchildren?

We hear a lot about the well-being of our children if this legislation isn’t passed. I am concerned about the well-being of our children if this legislation is passed.