RE:June 7th Seems To Be The Date People.....I really hope that Senate does not cause anymore delays. Check out some of the unbelievable concerns put forward by some senators in the 2nd reading of Bill C-45 - the common theme was that the Senate needs more time to discuss the proposed legalization and that the public needs to be informed/educated further on mj:
Cannabis Bill
Bill to Amend—Second Reading—Debate Continued
On the Order:
Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Dean, seconded by the Honourable Senator Forest, for the second reading of Bill C-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts.
Hon. Rose-May Poirier: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak at second reading on Bill C-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts, also known as the “Cannabis Act.”
As per our Rules, debate at second reading focuses on the principle or merits of the bill and to raise general issues from the bill. Therefore, I will not be addressing specific details of the bill, but talk about the intent of the bill and whether this is the best course of action to protect our youth and their health.
Like a lot of Canadians, I do have my share of concerns and doubts when it comes to Bill C-45 and its possible consequences if it is to receive Royal Assent.
According to a Globe and Mail Nanos survey from last September, only 7 per cent of the respondents said they believe that legalizing cannabis will lead to a decrease in consumption among Canadians younger than 18.
Not only from various surveys, but also from Canadians who took the time to either write me, call my office or stop by while I’m out on errands, all expressed their concerns. This is clearly a question that touches a lot of Canadians from coast to coast to coast and that could have a lasting impact.
The first concern which comes to mind for me from moving a drug from being illegal to legal is the perception of cannabis now being risk-free.
I first experienced this perception last spring after visiting high schools in New Brunswick. As honourable senators can imagine, the first topic they wanted to discuss was the legalization of cannabis. After a brief exchange, their perception was clear; now that it will be legal, there are no harms to its consumption.
Also, a survey conducted by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse published last year found that a majority of youths were unaware that cannabis can be addictive and lead to withdrawal symptoms.
Furthermore, according to a study published in 2015, evidence indicates that perception of harm associated with cannabis use is inversely related to rates of use among youth.
There is also the risk of mixed messaging by our government to our youth. On one hand, we are tightening the rules to prevent and minimize tobacco smoking by introducing plain packaging, social campaigns on its risk and discouraging Canadians by increasing the tax on tobacco. Quite honestly, that approach has worked well. But right now, on the other hand, we are legalizing cannabis, which is mostly smoked, and sending the message that smoking cannabis is okay. Smoke cannabis but don’t smoke tobacco. It’s almost like discouraging junk food like pizza with the help of a cheeseburger. Don’t eat pizza because it’s bad for you, but you are making cheeseburgers more available for Canadians.
And the mixed messaging was increased in yesterday’s budget. On one page, the government proposes to advance inflationary adjustments for tobacco to protect young people by making adjustments yearly instead of every five years. On the other page, the government proposes to have lower taxes for cannabis to protect kids and dismantle the black market. Lower taxes for cannabis is supposed to keep it out of the hands of youth, but the experience with tobacco shows higher taxes achieve it. It’s another mixed message for Canadians.
The risk of legalizing cannabis, which is still illegal, is that it ends up being normalized. Once the substance becomes normalized, the obvious effect is increased use. As I read research or heard people talk about cannabis, there is already a general assumption that Canadians smoke marijuana from the black market, so we might as well legalize it to eliminate the black market and to improve public health. That approach in itself, I fear, will be a step closer to cannabis being normalized in Canadian society, hence why I believe it is even more important to ensure that we have strong education campaigns, tools and resources available several months prior to the legalization.
Furthermore, the risk of normalizing cannabis in Canadian society could very well be heightened by allowing Canadians to grow up to four plants in their homes. If the goal of the bill is to protect young Canadians from the harms of cannabis, how is exposing kids to cannabis plants in their homes protecting them? Having cannabis plants in their homes will just further normalize cannabis as a harmless substance.
I was happy to see Quebec going forward by banning cannabis plants in homes, and I hope other provinces will follow that step.
Again, this is another situation where the federal government lacks leadership. The minimum age required for cannabis in Quebec has been set at 18, while their neighbouring provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick will be set at 19. It’s already an issue with alcohol having different age requirements, and I have seen this in my own province, especially in northern New Brunswick. Now, with the age difference in one province and not allowing personal home growth, it’s another loophole risking kids being exposed to cannabis at a younger age. In the process, the federal government washes its hands of it by forcing the provinces to make the hard decisions in creating an unbalanced approach throughout the country.
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There is clearly a lot of work to do on the issue of perception. For example, a Health Canada survey from last December showed that many cannabis users are not convinced that it can cause impaired driving. According to the Canadian cannabis survey, only half of the respondents who had consumed cannabis in the last year felt that cannabis use affected driving, compared to 75 per cent of all respondents. Another 24 per cent said it depends, while 19 per cent said cannabis doesn’t affect driving.
And what was most concerning is, again, during my visit to the local schools, I also questioned the students on driving under the influence. I asked them: If the driver had had two beers, would they get in the car with them? They all said no. But when I asked about cannabis, the answer was overwhelmingly yes.
So time and time again, honourable senators, the challenge of perception is clearly present. These types of surveys and reactions are concerning. Yes, the government has invested some funds in public education, but is the amount enough? We’re talking about $46 million over five years for the whole country which, by province and territory, amounts to $2 million per region, which is less than the ice rink now outside on our front lawn.
Is it enough for the message to reach Canadians, especially our youth? And is there enough time before cannabis becomes law for the message to be received and clearly make Canadians aware of the dangers and risk of cannabis?
In today’s society, we are bombarded everywhere and at all times: Facebook ads, YouTube ads, TV, radio, tweets, Facebook feeds from what our friends and families are up to, general interest, et cetera. It will take even more time and persuasion to reach Canadians in 2018 than it did when the tobacco campaign started in the late 1990s.
Now I’m aware that the government proposed to provide $62.5 million over five years starting in 2018-19 for public education initiatives in Tuesday’s budget. But in all fairness, when will that money be made available for its purpose? And so close to the projected date of the bill becoming law, how effective will the funding really be?
The second concern for me, as it is for a lot of Canadians, honourable senators, is on the health implications of cannabis. First and foremost, the health risks for our younger population are a huge concern not only for myself and members of this chamber, but also for the experts out there.
As I am not an expert on the matter of brain development, I will not go into the gritty details of what can happen to the brain when cannabis is consumed by people under the age of 25. But I have read what the experts have been telling us and there is a clear link on the brain development when cannabis is consumed by people under 25.
And that impact is greater the younger the user is. The younger the user, the more he or she becomes vulnerable to developing mental health issues.
According to a poll conducted by the Association des mdecins psychiatres du Qubec, 89 per cent of psychiatrists believe that legalization will lead to an increase in the use among legal-age young adults as well as among underage youth, and 79 per cent of the psychiatrists think that the legalization of cannabis will hinder the functionality and recovery of their patients.
To go beyond the statistics, honourable senators, please allow me to share part of an article from Maclean’s magazine titled The teenage brain on weed. It talks about a young man who started smoking cannabis at the young age of 14. As time went by, he started using more and more. His parents tried to stop him but they eventually gave up, content that their son wasn’t using harder drugs. The young man said, “That kind of told me that it’s okay, so I started using every day.”
After five years of heavy use, he noticed his short-term memory was starting to fray. He avoided talking to people. Worse, festering feelings of anxiety and depression were growing. He tried to mask them with weed, deepening his dependency. He quit his job and broke up with his girlfriend, trying to find the source of his depression.
After a minor argument with his sister at a family cabin, the young man fled and barrelled back to the city in tears. He called a friend to take him to a mental health clinic. The young man, who had been prescribed antidepressants a couple of weeks earlier, spent two hours with the doctor and was told what he had already suspected: He had a dependency on marijuana that was affecting his mental health, and he had to quit.
This young man’s story ends well, where he has stopped smoking cannabis. His depression and anxieties are gone and he is more outgoing socially. Unfortunately, his short-term memory has suffered. At work he has to make sure to write everything down. He did smoke at least once since he quit habitual use, although “It was eye-opening,” he says. His anxiety came back and he broke into a nervous sweat. “It was direct evidence that I’m okay, I can do without this.”
Not only for mental health issues, but there needs to be more research done to measure the impact for physical health. Yes, there is some risk to consuming cannabis during pregnancy as several studies have shown. But are Canadians knowledgeable on this, and have our health care professionals had these conversations with their patients?
According to the results of a survey in France, only 51 per cent of health care professionals asked their pregnant patients about drug use and approximately 68 per cent did not feel sufficiently informed about the risk of cannabis use during pregnancy.
I am aware the survey was made in another country, but these are questions to which we need answers before it becomes legalized to make sure our health professionals have the proper tools and proper knowledge to protect Canadians.
What was more troubling for me, honourable senators, was the government ignoring the call by certain groups, like the Paediatric Chairs of Canada, that we need more research. On one hand, we have the experts on the matter of pediatric health calling for more research, a moderate approach and a warning of the grave consequences for public health due to a gap in public education. On the other hand, the government wants this bill to be adopted quickly in the name of public health.
Why is the government not listening to the experts on this matter? It is baffling that the experts who are asking for a moderate request to have more time for public education are being ignored by the government.
Furthermore, my office had a chance to meet with the Canadian Nurses Association, and they too shared their concerns. A new national survey revealed that only 62 per cent of nurses consider themselves knowledgeable or very knowledgeable about the risks associated with recreational, non-medical cannabis. These numbers are problematic since the nurses are the front line and backbone of our health care system.
In the spirit of Bill C-45, where the goal is to improve public health, how can we do so if only two thirds of the nurses feel they have the required knowledge to effectively tackle this new reality? We need to give them the resources and the time to improve the knowledge for the current nurses, as well as to adapt the curriculum for future nurses.
However, honourable senators, as I have read more and more on cannabis, whether it be by health care stakeholders, medical researchers, municipal leaders or studies on the experiences in Colorado and Washington, it all came to a similar recommendation: Don’t rush it through.
Yes, I acknowledge we have some of the highest rates of cannabis use in the world, and that is a problem. But according to a new study released by Statistics Canada last December, older Canadians, including senior citizens, are using cannabis, but fewer minors consume the substance. I will quote the analyst Michelle Rotermann:
This study and others have shown recently that use of cannabis among youth has either remained stable or has declined whereas use among older individuals has increased.
To wrap up, honourable senators, we have the facts in front of us. Perception: What message are we sending to Canadians? As we are cracking down on smoking tobacco, we are legalizing smoking marijuana.
Pediatric and mental health representatives are concerned about the risk for our youth, especially for brain development and mental health.
The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Poirier, your time has expired. Are you asking for more time?
Senator Poirier: Can I have five minutes more, please?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Poirier: There is a gap in education for the Canadian public, especially our youth, but also for occupations like nurses, who will deal with the possible consequences of the bill. We need to better assist them so that they, in return, can be more effective and, therefore, our public health will be better.
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Allow me, honourable senators, to read a letter I received from a concerned mother, which demonstrates the real risk behind cannabis consumption.
Dear Senators from New Brunswick,
I am writing to you to express my concern about Bill C-45, which deals with the legalization of cannabis, and ask that you would vote against this Bill or at the very least, stall its passing.
I have firsthand experience as to why I have such concerns over this bill being passed.
I almost lost my 20 year old son after a well-meaning doctor gave him a prescription for marijuana, to help with some depression symptoms.
He became suicidal and tried to take his life more than once. He then went into a full blown drug induced psychotic episode which required a full month on a psychiatric ward.
It was a nightmare to say the least.
After much support and prayer, I am happy to say, my son is doing very well, and with no more marijuana. He is just about to graduate from Firefighter school.
Our story has a happy ending but what about all the youth who are also at risk for increased depression, increased suicide tendencies and psychotic episodes through marijuana usage?
Please do not pass this Bill. Marijuana is not as safe as many assume it to be. There needs to be more study and more time given to such a huge decision.
Respectfully,
A concerned mother from New Brunswick.
And I have left the name out.
In my opinion, we are going too far, too fast. Fully legalizing to meet an artificial and, quite frankly, a political deadline is not in the best interests of Canadian public health. All stakeholders and all the research have emphasized the importance of having strong education and awareness campaigns for all Canadians prior to legalization. We need to ensure we’re not sending mixed messages to our youth; we need to ensure our health professionals are knowledgeable and well equipped to meet these new challenges, and we need to communicate clearly to all Canadians, especially the parents and our youth, about the real risks behind cannabis use. If not, honourable senators, we won’t feel the consequences of our decision on this bill. It will be our grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will have to deal with the consequences, to which I ask: Are we doing them a service or a disservice by going too fast into a barely chartered territory?
Thank you, honourable senators.
Hon. Frances Lankin: Honourable senators, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to participate in this discussion on Bill C-45 at second reading. And like Senator Poirier, I intend to speak to this bill in principle and raise the issues of concern that I would hope the committee will spend some time delving into and hopefully providing their thoughts on back to the Senate as a whole when they report out on this bill.
I also want to take a moment at the beginning and thank those senators who, in doing research, have shared that research with all of us in this chamber. The sponsor of the bill, Senator Dean, has done a phenomenal job in pulling together a lot of information and making it available to any senator who wishes to do that, and far beyond government and the Library of Parliament, from different symposia and seminars. I have to say it has taken over my reading completely, but it is very, very helpful. For example, there are a couple of things Senator Unger has distributed to all of us, putting forward a particular point of view and some research evidence that supports that point of view that she holds on it.
I have found this a very engaging opportunity. And if I may comment on the nature of the debate, the fact that we are speaking with each other, each day, and with two or three speakers, I find helps me really understand the perspectives around the chamber, and I’m learning from everyone that speaks. We all bring different understandings, perceptions, experiences and evidentiary facts to the table. I think that’s helpful.
I started my thinking about this from my position in principle going into second reading. I will admit, if I have a bias, it is a bias from years of working in community health and public health. I understand the concepts behind those issues, particularly as they intersect with discussions around controlled drugs. I started looking at this from the perspective of being open to what the government was arguing the purpose of the bill was in terms of a public health approach. Of course, it raised a question for me that the debates often contrasted public health with the “war on drugs.”
I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know about the “war on drugs” and the history of that until I started doing research. As a kid of the 1950s and 1960s, I thought that at least the colloquialism of the war on drugs came about from President Nixon in 1971 and the Shafer Commission, and I will come back to that in a moment. That’s where I assumed it started.
As I looked, I found that Canada has a very long record of having been part of and having led on the war on drugs. I looked back and found that around 1908, 1909 then Minister of Labour King went out to Vancouver after race riots took place in the Chinese community, primarily in the storefront areas where there were Chinese and Japanese business owners whose shops were destroyed and windows smashed. I had never heard of this. I didn’t understand this early intersection between drug policy and race. There are a number of places where it plays out in its history. It’s interesting. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that except to say it’s very interesting reading for people.
Minister King came back from Vancouver and brought in the Opium Act in 1908 or 1909. In 1911 it was amended. It became the Opium and Drugs Act. In 1923 cannabis was added. In 1929 it became the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act. For a long time that was Canada’s mainstay approach towards controlling of drugs and its approach to drug policy.
In 2011, the Safe Street and Communities Act brought forward amendments to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act with mandatory minimum sentencing. I raise that because it was interesting that this Senate at the time weighed in on that issue as it had impacts on Aboriginal communities, which is one of the focuses that we often talk about and the lens and the filter that we bring to examining bills.
The following year, the Supreme Court ruled on this issue. They made it very clear that with respect to the sentencing of Aboriginal offenders:
. . . courts must take judicial notice of . . . the history of colonialism, displacement, and residential schools and how that history continues to translate into lower educational attainment, lower incomes, higher unemployment, higher rates of substance abuse and suicide, and of course higher levels of incarceration for Aboriginal peoples.
So the Supreme Court set out the necessity for courts and the justice system to continue to understand, at least in the case of Aboriginal peoples, the societal, cultural and justice circumstances that bring Aboriginal peoples to courts in these circumstances. It was interesting that, again, this Senate played a role.
I’ll go back to the States for a moment and talk about where I thought the war on drugs started with President Nixon. In 1972, he set up the Shafer Commission. It was former Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer who chaired that. I believe from my reading that the President expected that it would be a rather straightforward and hard-hitting report that would continue to support the approach of the war on drugs.
In fact, the Shafer Commission came back and they did not argue legalization, but they did argue for decriminalization. They argued for an end to prohibition. That was the context in which they were looking at it. They were looking at whether the policies they had in place in the United States worked. What’s the impact of cannabis and what should they do going forward? They made a recommendation to end prohibition, and in this case back in 1972 the measure they suggested was decriminalization.
Nixon wasn’t very happy with this. I thought one of the most interesting things was I found myself, as I was going through websites, landing on a section of the tapes from the Oval Office as they become publicly accessible over the years. The tapes were there. And President Nixon was hopping mad about the Shafer Commission. In fact he called them something. I can’t tell you what because it seemed to be redacted from the article that I read. At least, it was dot, dot, dot. I think that there must have been some profanity involved in that, but he was determined that in fact that was wrongheaded and that it would continue with respect to the war on drugs.
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Previous to that, in 1988, France had undertaken a major study as well. The health minister had proposed a study and a commission was brought together. It was headed by a renowned researcher, Bernard-Pierre Roques. They focused on characterizations and classifications of drugs — that is, low impact, medium impact and high impact. They made suggestions, which weren’t followed through on either, that alcohol be moved up to very high impact and that marijuana be moved down to low impact. Interestingly, that’s where the evidence took them. Once again, the political response was we’re not going to touch that; we’re not going to go there.
In 2014, the New York Academy of Medicine issued a statement saying that “In the long run, marijuana legalization appears to hold the greatest promise for effective and intelligent control of marijuana use.”
The New York Academy of Medicine made that statement in 2014 in the context of a 70-year look back to the LaGuardia commission. The commission, issued by the mayor of New York at the time — someone who was very small “L” liberal in his views around these things; he may have been large “L” liberal, too, but not in his views around drugs — made it into almost a personal war between him and Harry J. Anslinlger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. They had very different views, but the LaGuardia commission came up with some radical statements like this is not a gateway drug, it doesn’t lead to use of heroin and it is not a cause of juvenile delinquency — things we hear talked about now and that are still being debated. It’s not that the research doesn’t land anywhere or doesn’t congregate to a certain opinion in its majority, but there’s so much available that is of such low quality — not because of the work that was being done but because there has been an inability to do wide-ranging research with a controlled substance. Researchers can’t do it because it’s illegal to grow. The kind of research agenda that has existed has been limited by the war-on-drugs approach that we have had.
I looked at the history of this. I looked at the race impacts, whether it was Aboriginal peoples and who has been mostly negatively impacted by the war-on-drugs approach. I found that it is people of poverty and people of colour largely in the U.S. Those questions of what the impact of that policy has been, who pays the most for that policy and how it relates with other issues, like race and our overall history on prohibition and other things, are all important context setters for how this debate comes to us.
Where I end up today, before we have the opportunity to examine this bill in committee, is to say that I support the public health approach. Therefore, in principle, I will support this bill, but first I want to raise a number of issues of concern.
I want to thank other senators who have done that. Yesterday, Senator Neufeld gave a moving presentation of the issues as he’s seen and experienced them in his life and in his hopes and aspirations for his grandchildren. Sharing his own personal experiences with us was powerful and bold, and I appreciate it.
Senator Batters, in questions that she’s asked here — on this issue and on other issues —points to the importance of resources for mental health and treatment for mental health. She brings a tragic life experience to that.
Honourable senators, it’s important that we hear each other as we talk about these things from the experiences that we all have and bring.
Senator White and others who are from policing background bring a particular perspective. I’m from a public health background. I bring a particular perspective.
There are reasons why we say the things that we do. I believe that none of us want to move into this debate on the basis of moral opinions or ideological opinions. We want it to be evidence-based, but we have a problem in that the evidence can take us different places and we have to try not to be led only to look at the evidence that supports the incoming assumptions.
I don’t think I’m wrong to say that the majority of opinion scientifically actually comes to the point that the war on drugs as a policy is a failed public policy and that a public health approach is the better way to go. However, in that there are a whole lot of things that we don’t have the answers to that people have raised as concerns.
I hope the committee takes its time to look at things like where we need more research. A lot of dollars in research has been announced. Where do we need the research? How do we get the people on the ground, the provinces and the federal government to collaborate and to define that focus and get research that’s going to help us move a public health approach forward?
Concerning black market eradication, there are lots of issues around that. Have they got the pricing and tax policy correct or not? It’s a policy choice for them to make where they’re going to set it. What’s the evidence that supports them to set it where it is? It’s worth looking at that and understanding it.
With respect to home growing, is that part of what they are putting forward as a way to eradicate the black market? It raises questions in and of itself. How do you have quality control on the product if it’s being grown in people’s homes? That’s a very important question. On the other hand, if someone can grow four plants and not go to the street corner to buy it from the black market, does that help eradicate the market? I don’t know the answers, but I would like those questions to be raised.
There is also the parents’ role. We’ve heard a lot about if we have these plants growing in the home, children will have access to them. I see it the same as if children are in a home where someone is brewing beer or making wine. Those substances are there and you could have access to them as well in someone’s home. The role of how we educate and equip parents, I think, is really important. Work has begun on that. Those kits are being distributed and more work needs to be done.
Regarding prevention and education, we have seen how powerful it has been over the years with tobacco. I had the opportunity to be part of banning the sale of tobacco in drug stores in Ontario and the banning of vending machines. Kids used to be able to walk in foyers of restaurants and bars and not go inside, but go in and get cigarettes from the machine. Those kinds of moves, along with that kind of education, has had a profound impact. We need to do the same in this area.
I don’t disagree with people who say that it would have been better if we started this three years ago, however.
May I ask, Mr. Chair, for another five minutes?
Hon. Art Eggleton (The Hon. the Acting Speaker): Five more minutes? Is it agreed, colleagues?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Lankin: Thank you.
People have mentioned youth consumption and Indigenous communities. Obviously, prevention information is critical. Those things have been covered.
I want to talk for the last three minutes about the intersectionality between youth, mental illness, cannabis and employment. These things are all connected. I spent a bit of time in 2011-12 reading OECD reports about mental illness and the impact it was having on our economies, on workplaces, on employers, on accommodation costs, on lack of accommodation and the costs of that and the connection now to young people.
Research is being done at places like CAMH on the aspiring workforce where they’re working with former patients and clients and looking at the connection to work as part of the treatment modality for mental health. There’s so much that we don’t know. On youth mental health and youth brain development, there’s a lot of stuff swirling around. Most of it will tell you it’s different for every person. Once again, we have to give information and ammunition to individuals.
The Pine River Institute north of Toronto is a treatment resource. They, and many others, are suffering from having 29 funded beds for youth with mental health and addiction problems and 200 people on the waiting list. Every one of us could give those examples of organizations that we know.
Honourable senators, I believe we need to be calling on the federal and provincial governments to a fed-prov process of developing a youth mental health framework and resources for the interventions and treatments that need to happen. Only one of the reasons is cannabis and what we have yet to know about how to determine safe levels of cannabis use, if there is such a thing.
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The last thing I would say, I’ve looked at this and wondered what all those questions mean and where they lead. Do they lead to potential amendments? All of that is to be determined. But I look at this also from the basic principle of supporting a public health approach, and I will also look at the Salisbury Convention, that this is a bill and a public policy approach that the government campaigned on, they put forward and people have voted on. Where there are choices to be made, I’ll question them on those choices. If I think there’s a better choice, I’ll try to convince them.
But I would suggest that in most of these situations what we would see as an appropriate way forward is for the committee to attach significant observations on these issues and really try to engage the government in doing something like a fed-prov strategy on youth mental health and resources for treatment and research focused on that.
So I’ll leave my comments at that for second reading. I appreciate all those who have contributed to my thinking on this as I’ve been listening. Thank you.
Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!
The Hon. the Acting Speaker: Will you take a question, Senator Lankin?
Senator Lankin: Yes.
Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Thank you for your speech. You said there’s been a lot of research done. Parliamentary Secretary Blair announced last-minute research money very recently, $1.4 million to fund 14 research projects across Canada. Do you think that’s a lot of research funding for a subject of this magnitude?
Senator Lankin: $1.4 million? No, I don’t think that’s a lot of money, but I don’t think that’s all the money that has been earmarked for research, either. I think the budget just put forward another $20 million yesterday.
I think this whole area needs to have a large focus on what we need in the early days to answer these research questions. There has to be a coordinated approach, not only driven by the research interests that are applying for these grants. There has to be, from a public policy point of view, some things we really want to know that we should, collaboratively with the provinces, direct that research towards.
[Translation]
Hon. Chantal Petitclerc: Honourable senators, it is a privilege for me to join the debate on Bill C-45. I would like to begin by thanking the bill’s sponsor, Senator Dean, for his outstanding work and collaboration, as well as all senators who have contributed to the debate.
[English]
I love this country, and like every one of you, I have a vision of where I want to see our country going. I have a vision for the future I want for my little boy and for generations to come.
These visions that we all have, of course, come from who we are: our backgrounds, experiences, values and choices. So as a small-town girl turned high-performance athlete, it will not surprise you that my dream for our youth is very ambitious. I see a country where our kids are healthy, active, thriving, with no limits on what they choose to accomplish. And that’s not really what’s happening right now.
Now, I’m not nave, and I know that building a country is not that simple, but you see where I’m coming from. And you can understand that when it comes to Bill C-45 — and I’ve said this to Senator Dean a couple of times — let’s just say that I’m struggling. I can’t shake the feeling that we are taking a big leap of faith, with a lot of unknowns and some serious risks ahead of us.
[Translation]
I am well aware that our role is not to make a value judgment on the relevance of a government bill, especially since 65 per cent of the population supported this initiative during the campaign. However, I also know that, as legislators, it is our responsibility to protect the most vulnerable, and that includes our youth. What we know is that, once Bill C-45 becomes law, adults will be able to access regulated legal products if they so wish.
[English]
But apart from that, there are many question marks that still remain, as has been mentioned. What will the impact be on the illicit market? How will the personal culture of cannabis be possible to regulate and monitor? How can we make an informed review of legislation when the data we have access to is so recent, with little baseline on an illegal product? It is complex, and I don’t even want to think about one year from now, where someone will have to answer the very important question that no one has yet dared to ask: How on earth will we baby-proof a muffin?
But the questions that keep me up at night when I think about Bill C-45 and our youth are the “whys.” A figure of 21 per cent of youth reported using cannabis in 2015 and 30 per cent of young adults have said they are using it. Why is that? Why does Canada have one of the highest rates of cannabis use among developed countries? Surely we cannot be comfortable with that kind of record. Is legalization how we intend to respond to this alarming situation?
I have some doubts and questions. In fact, I’m puzzled. We have been told by many and often how Bill C-45 is intended to answer a health crisis and is all about harm reduction. If it is a question of health protection — and I do hope it is — if it is a public policy answer to an already existing health problem, then why are the health professionals and scientists not listening, to the extent that I believe they should be, on so many levels? I lack seeing coherence between the declared intention of the bill and the measures that are proposed. For example, when it comes to packaging, the McLellan report has advocated strongly for plain packaging, yet the government is not going in that direction.
Some have stated that Bill C-45 will not have an impact on the normalization of cannabis. Like many, I have my doubts and I’m not sure I agree. In fact, I would argue that when we look at the high figures of consumption, especially in our youth, it is already normalized, and I’m not sure legalization will fix it. Listen to the conversations around you; I think on some level it’s already happening. Only last week, an 8-year-old in my presence, knowing what I do here, asked me: “So does this mean I will be okay to smoke a joint in 10 years?” I do hope these comments are exceptions and not a reflection of conversations happening all around this country. In fact, I have a really hard time becoming convinced that young kids consuming cannabis will change their ways.
In the small town where I grew up, like thousands of little towns similar to it in Canada, things were quite simple. If you were into it and your parents could afford it, you played hockey or you did figure skating. If not, well, you hung out, and you hung out a lot, and you got bored. Some kids got into trouble. We all knew exactly where the local dealer hung out — not too far from the school — and I know for a fact, because I called a former teacher, that there is still someone at exactly the same place. We all know, if we are being honest, that he will still be there after Bill C-45 comes into force.
The Canadian Psychiatric Association, like many medical scientists, has warned us that the brain remains vulnerable to cannabis in unique ways until the age of 25. Senator Woo and others raised this concern thoroughly in their second reading speeches, and I will not repeat them, but I wanted to say that I do share those concerns.
The medical science is not in dispute, yet while our government says that Bill C-45 aims for public health and harm reduction, it does not seem to listen to its own medical community by protecting our youth properly until 25 years of age. Yes, I understand and I hear the logistical reasons to go for age 18, but should harmonization with the alcohol and tobacco legal age be a priority on a bill that is supposed to be all about harm reduction? I’m not too convinced.
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I know that we have to be realistic. Kids and young adults will always want to experiment, push boundaries and try new things. This is normal and, for the most part, harmless. But we need to make sure that no one goes from experience to waste of potential, talent, life and addiction.
With the many concerns that I have, I am strongly convinced, as advised by many organizations, including the Canadian Medical Association, that the key to protecting our youth will be education, awareness and information.
Washington has committed to invest a little bit over $1 per person per year. Colorado goes for $1.64 per person per year. Our government has decided so far to invest on average 20 cents per person per year.
Very little has been done to date to increase public education about the risks of cannabis. The government readjusted its financial commitment yesterday, when it tabled the budget allocating an additional $62.5 million over five years in addition to the $46 million already committed. This certainly is good news that we welcome. But we are still only at an average of 60 cents per person per year. So how will this be enough, if I may ask?
Cultural and social change is long, slow and arduous. Think about how many years after legislation it took for individuals to start using their seatbelts when driving, and how many years it took to get the behaviours of drunk drivers to improve? Perhaps the best example is tobacco. Even after we knew it was killing Canadians, it took decades and massive investments in education and awareness for our tobacco rate to go to the now historical low of 16.9 per cent.
My point is we can’t afford to wait and react or readjust down the road. We have to be cautious, aggressive and proactive from the start. I’m not too sure we are doing this.
[Translation]
Why did the awareness campaign not start months ago, well before the act came into force? The minister’s answers to this question were not very clear in committee of the whole, even after repeated questions from the opposition leader, Senator Smith.
There have been some initiatives; we are all familiar with them. In March 2017, Health Canada, in collaboration with Drug Free Kids Canada, launched a digital campaign and created the “Cannabis Talk Kit” brochure, 180,000 copies of which have been distributed so far. We also know that an extensive national information and awareness campaign will be launched in March 2018 — so any time now.
[English]
I am not a communications expert, but allow me to doubt that 180,000 traditionally printed pamphlets distributed on demand is the optimal way to reach our youth. In this day and age, one could hope for something a little more creative and dynamic.
I, for one, have not been reached by any awareness message. Maybe I’m just too old for that. May I remind honourable senators that in the panel organized by Senator Oh, with leaders from the pediatric community, I was amazed at the end that they did not even know that some awareness campaigns or education had been even done? So that really says something about efficiency.
If Bill C-45 is about health policy and harm reduction, health must be the priority. Legislation alone will not address the challenges of our youth being among the highest consumers of cannabis in developed countries. Education, awareness and de-normalization of cannabis is, I believe, the only way to do it.
Before I conclude, allow me some latitude to go a little bit out of scope and share what deep down really troubles me. At some point, we as a country will need to take a step back, look at our youth challenges, not only in silos but as a whole, and really decide how important it is to tackle those challenges in a more comprehensive manner. Think about this: Our youth, as we learned with Bill C-45, are among the highest consumers of cannabis in developed countries. To add to the statistics, here are a couple more that paint a sad picture.
[Translation]
Statistics Canada’s recent figures warrant our attention. Forty-five per cent of people aged 18 to 34 are overweight or obese. Just one in six youth are getting their 150 minutes of physical activity each week. Only 25 per cent of young men and 37 per cent of young women aged 18 to 34 consume the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. One in four youth aged 20 to 29 ranks as having poor heart health. Our youth suicide rate is among the highest in industrialized countries, especially in certain communities, as we know. The school drop-out rates also remain quite high.
We might ask ourselves what is going on with our youth. Why are we seeing so many worrisome, even alarming, figures in so many areas?
[English]
Why should we as a country settle for that? Do we not have higher expectations for our youth?
[Translation]
Furthermore, what are we doing to fix this in a structural way, rather than taking measures here and there, in silos?
[English]
I don’t have the answers, but I know that a very strong, quantifiable commitment from our leaders to social changes, education and awareness will be part of the solution. While we are going to study this bill in various committees, I do hope that we keep in mind that we have a role to play in that bigger picture.
Bill C-45 is addressing only a small part of the landscape when it comes to the challenges facing our youth, but it is an important one, and we can’t afford to get it wrong. Thank you.
(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)