24 février 2018
Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
Ms. Ginette Petitpas Taylor
Minister of Health
Mr. Bill Morneau
Minister of Finance
As the examination of Bill C-45 continues in the Senate, we would like to reiterate Québec's demands with respect to the federal cannabis legislation.
In an opinion letter on February 17, Senator Serge Joyal also raised a number of concerns that need to be taken into consideration.
It goes without saying that the new provincial and federal legislative provisions must, once passed, be free from ambiguity if they are to be enforced effectively.
Obviously, the decision to criminalize the home production of cannabis if it involves more than four plants falls under the federal government's power to enact criminal law. It is also clear that the provinces, in pursuit of the same public health and safety objectives as the federal government, can also set limits on the home cultivation of cannabis, in particular by authorizing the same number of plants or a lower number. This is why Québec, like Manitoba, is proposing, under its own legislative powers, to set rules for the cultivation of cannabis to authorize it in places other than the home.
It is regrettable that some members of the federal government have put forward a different interpretation of this particular question, which may lead to confusion and unnecessary court proceedings that will prove costly for taxpayers.
As noted above, the decriminalization and legalization of cannabis pursue, in particular, an objective of public safety. In both Ottawa and Québec City, the approach reflects the goal of fighting organized crime. This is why the identity of producers must be known and their probity subject to all the verifications necessary to ensure the absence of any connection to the criminal world, both when licences are issued and during all subsequent operations conducted by the companies.
This means that at the initial stage of granting a license to produce, which falls under federal government responsibility, the probity of companies, their officers and their shareholders must be subject to in-depth checks.
Vigilance must be maintained once a licence has been issued. In an effort to give priority to public safety, Québec intends to exercise its powers to conduct other verifications designed to keep organized crime away from the legal trade in cannabis.
For this purpose, an amendment to Bill 157, An Act to constitute the Société québécoise du cannabis, to enact the Cannabis Regulation Act and to amend various highway safety-related provisions, currently under examination, will be proposed to allow the Autorité des marchés publics, established by the current government to strengthen the regulation of public contracts, to issue authorizations to enter into contract only once full and in depth verifications regarding the probity of the companies and that of their officers, including in matters of tax compliance, are completed. For this purpose, the Autorité would work in close collaboration with other supervisory and investigatory bodies such as the Sûreté du Québec, the UPAC (Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit), Revenu Québec and the Autorité des marchés financiers. My colleague, the Minister for Rehabilitation, Youth Protection, Public Health and Healthy Living, intends to bring the amendment before the members of the Committee on Health and Social Services shortly.
Our government will use all the means at its disposal to ensure that the production and sale of cannabis in Québec takes place under a framework clearly based on public safety. We thus expect a similarly firm commitment by the federal government to pursue the same objective. The interests of all our fellow citizens are at stake.
In closing, we would like to reiterate the importance of delaying the coming into force of the federal legislation until the appropriate scientific detection devices are made available. In this case, it is the safety of our fellow citizens on the road that is at risk.
