Canadian Lawmakers Debate Delaying Legal Weed Until 2019

G

gb123

Well-Known Member
All across Canada, the cannabis industry has been ramping up in expectation of bringing legal adult-use marijuana to the country this summer, but legalization could be put on hold for another year if some lawmakers get their way. Last week, members of the Canadian Senate's Aboriginal Peoples Committee proposed that the government should back off on legal weed until its impact on the country’s native communities can be fully evaluated.

Sen. Lillian Dyck, chair of the committee, said that government officials did not sufficiently consult with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities to understand how legalization could affect these communities. "Many communities are really worried about the potential adverse effects on their members, and especially on their youth, and it may be even worse because of the trauma in their communities," said Dyck according to CBC News.

Other committee members argued that not enough thought had been put into how First Nations' individual governments would be able to tax legal cannabis. "The way the bill has been crafted shows there was very little consultation," said Sen. Scott Tannas. "There was no thought given to the [tax issues], and there are First Nations that are keen on economic opportunities that would come from the legitimate production of cannabis and they feel that they're behind. There are Indigenous governments that want to see economic development and get revenue... None of that appears to have been considered."

The committee also asserted that the government had not prepared “culturally appropriate” educational material to teach indigenous peoples about the changes in the country's cannabis laws. Although cannabis use will now be legal, the legal penalties for certain offenses — such as driving while stoned or giving pot to a minor — have actually increased, with the committee contending that First Nations police have not undergone necessary training to deal with these new issues.


The Senate committee offered an amendment that would delay the start date for legalization for a full year in order to resolve these issues, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is remaining adamant that plans to legalize pot this year will not be delayed. Trudeau told reporters at a press conference last week that “We're going to continue to move forward. We're going to bring in legalization as we've committed to this summer on schedule,” the Huffington Post reports.

Trudeau said that he expected the nationwide legalization of cannabis to put an end to the country's thriving black market. "Right now young people have far too easy access in Canada to marijuana. Criminal organizations make billions of dollars a year in profits on the sale of marijuana," he told the press. "We need to move forward on a system that controls and regulates while protecting our kids and our communities." The prime minister added that legislators should commit to legalizing this year, and then adjust specific regulations as necessary.

Postponing the rollout of legal weed would be a financial disaster for companies investing in getting their cannabis operations ready for this summer, but a year's delay could actually unravel the entire process of legalization. If a Conservative majority were to win the next round of elections, the new government could choose to vote against the legalization bill, destroying prospects for legal pot in the Great White North.
 
The Hippy

The Hippy

Well-Known Member
I'm sorry but all I got outta that was that we have a senator named Lil Dick ( Sen. Lillian Dyck ) ..........must have a huge clit.....I dunno...i'm not a Doctor........I only pretend to be a Doctor. ..........................on weekends
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....at various hospitals until discovered and removed. But I'm picking the trade up slowly.
See
Don't I look all trusty like.....
 
G

gb123

Well-Known Member
Slow-moving senators could frustrate any attempt by Liberals to rush pot legalization
You want it when? The Senate tends to move with the urgency of Flash the Sloth in Disney’s Zootopia.

The upshot is that there are growing concerns in government about the Red Chamber meeting Justin Trudeau’s summer deadline on legalizing marijuana, as well as passing the accompanying impaired driving bill.

At least the main cannabis bill — C-45 — goes to a vote in the Senate on June 7. That would give the House two weeks before the summer break to deal with any amendments.

But the drug impaired driving bill — C-46 — is still before the Senate’s legal affairs committee, which is drawing up a draft report.

The upshot – even if the pot bill receives Royal Assent before Canada Day, the impaired driving bill may not pass until later in the year.

Bill Blair, the government’s point man on the pot bill could barely contain his frustration in an interview. :hump::lol:(:“It’s our desire that the Senate deal with this (C-46) in an expeditious fashion. The day it is enacted, it will begin saving lives. My desire was to see C-46 pass six months ago. But I don’t see a delay in C-46 being an impediment to the passage and Royal Assent of C-45,” he said.










The government has already said that it doesn’t see the sale of legal pot happening until two to three months after the bill is passed into law. Blair said pot can’t be moved legally from producers to distributors until Royal Assent is given.

But the Senate isn’t scheduled to return from its summer break until September 17.

We may well have an extended period of time when pot is legal but the drug impaired driving bill is still before lawmakers.

This doesn’t necessarily mean chaos on the roads – the police already have the powers to arrest drugged up drivers. The two bills are independent from one another, even if they were conceived together.

But it is far from optimal and raises the question, yet again: why did the Liberals give themselves the artificial deadline of Canada Day to pass the pot bill?

While C-46 is not as advanced in the legislative process as C-45, it is relatively uncontroversial.

The same cannot be said of C-45 in its current form.

Blair is too much of a straight-shooter:hump: to convey the subtle untruths so typical on Parliament Hill.

:hump:
Liberal MP Bill Blair: “It’s our desire that the Senate deal with this in an expeditious fashion.” Chris Young/The Canadian Press
I asked the former Toronto Police Chief if he is confident C-45 will make it through the Senate in time to meet the Prime Minister’s timeline.

He thought about it for a moment, before saying he is confident the Senate will do its work and vote on the bill on June 7. Four Senate committees have reported on the bill and a final report, with amendments, is being drawn up by the social affairs committee.

Blair said the government is open to amendments. “Everything can always be improved,” he said.

It’s not clear which suggested changes will make the final cut. But there is sympathy among some senators for provinces like Quebec and Manitoba that argue they would like to forbid the home cultivation of any cannabis plants. Bill C-45 makes it an offence to grow more than four plants. Blair said the legislation does not create a legal right, it just makes it an offence to grow more than four plants. He said provinces will be able to control cultivation within their own jurisdiction through permitting limitations and other regulations.

But André Pratte, the former editor-in-chief of La Presse who now sits as an independent senator, said layers of laws and regulations will be a recipe for confusion. He advocates an amendment that confirms the powers of the provinces to prohibit home cultivation, if they wish to do so. “It makes sense to leave the decision to the people closest to their communities – and that’s the provinces,” he said.

We may well have an extended period of time when pot is legal but the drug impaired driving bill is still before lawmakers




The other major C-45 amendment that may be included in the social affairs report is the suggestion aired by the aboriginal people’s committee that would effectively postpone legalization for up to a year to accommodate broader consultations with indigenous communities in areas like revenue-sharing.

Pratte said he is sympathetic to the argument that the government should have sat down with First Nations before now.

But he said it is unrealistic to push off legalization for up to a year, given the looming 2019 election.

He said changes should be put forward with some prospect of them being acceptable to the government. “We know the answer to this one. It’s not realistic to make such an amendment,” he said.

But delaying implementation of some aspects of the bill has support among a number of senators, including Liberal Serge Joyal.

“Police forces and municipalities and provinces are calling for more time. That is not to oppose the bill but to give them time to adapt,” he said. “The deadline is self-imposed. I don’t dispute the privilege of the government to set a target date but there is the test of reality. It is in the interests of the government for the transition to be done smoothly.”

Compromise may be possible. The government could extend the two to three month period before legalization is operational, in exchange for swift passage in the Senate.

But if the Liberals in the House attempt to ram through C-45 in its current form, they may find that, like the sloths working in the Department of Mammal Vehicles in Zootopia, slow-moving senators are able to frustrate their agenda.
 
G

gb123

Well-Known Member
Canada should not proceed with the legalization of marijuana as planned
After the last week or so of avoiding questions about whether marijuana would indeed be legalized by summer as planned, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed last Thursday that the process will not be delayed. Some senators have called for a one-year deferment to allow for further consultation with Indigenous groups, but the government's plan — at least for now — is of full steam ahead.



The recent confusion and ambiguity is only the latest confusion and ambiguity from the Liberals on the marijuana file. From the beginning it was apparent that the move was mendaciously promoted as a means to circumvent organized crime and to protect children. But it should be obvious to everyone that selling legal weed is not going to prevent people from selling illegal weed at slightly below the fixed government price. That contraband marijuana will also be available for sale to children, just as it is now and has been for decades on Canadian streets.



Then there's the process of how the pot legislation made its way through the House of Commons. According to the anti-marijuana group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), which worked practically alone in opposing the legislation, certain witnesses were prevented from addressing the health committee.



Australian scientist Dr. Stuart Reece was invited to address the group of elected representatives, for example, until he was uninvited — likely after the Liberal majority on the committee discovered that Reece had published a paper on how marijuana has been linked to gene mutation. (They initially said it was a timetabling conflict, according to Reece, but never followed up when he offered an alternate slot.) His paper is not exactly an anomaly: there are reams of studies linking marijuana to a host of medical conditions and health problems from gene mutation, to possible infertility in men to schizophrenia. But the health committee mostly just heard the sanguine story of how marijuana was really just a miracle drug.

Assessing impairment


But perhaps most concerning is that the Liberal government and law enforcement cannot say how much marijuana consumed would make someone too stoned to drive. The legal limit for impairment will be over five nanograms of THC in the blood, but to the average person, that means nothing in terms of judging how much they can safely consume before driving.



Draft regulations released by Health Canada last year stated that "the science is unable to provide general guidance to drivers about how much cannabis can be consumed before it is unsafe to drive or before the proposed levels would be exceeded." As such, the government recommends that "the safest approach for anyone who chooses to consume cannabis is to not mix their consumption with driving."



But this is total wishful thinking. What's more, there are some research papers, such as Dr. Rebecca Hartman's research paper "Cannabis Effects on Driving Skills," which clearly define how much marijuana can cause impairment. Indeed, in Colorado, the state law indicates that 18 mg of marijuana consumed leads to impairment. Yet in terms of measuring that impairment during roadside tests in Canada, we will have to rely mostly on impressions by and judgment from police officers, which we all know is hardly infallible.


Measuring impairment on the road will be left to officers' judgments. (File Photo/CBC)


The government's rollout of legalized recreational marijuana also ignores the idea that in some jurisdictions or small towns, the presence of state-sanctioned weed might not be welcome.



In Colorado, many towns have passed municipal bylaws that outlaw marijuana use, thus bypassing the state's legalization. Part of the reason is that legalization has coincided with a spike in impaired driving and traffic fatalities linked to marijuana. In Canada, municipal governments will have to deal with many of the front-line concerns — zoning, local law enforcement, monitoring of home growers and so forth — all while having had little say in the process and rollout.



And just last month, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, noting that crime has risen in his state since the legalization of marijuana at a rate that outpaces the national trend, said he wouldn't rule out re-criminalizing marijuana.



Like much of the political inventory in Trudeau's world, this marijuana legislation is a policy based on highly dubious claims and grossly optimistic expectations. The debate continues over whether pot is a gateway drug to other, more lethal substance abuse, but there is sufficient evidence to suggest that probability. With so many serious concerns still unaddressed, it could be a grave error for the Liberals to proceed with legalization as planned.
 
OLD MOTHER SATIVA

OLD MOTHER SATIVA

Well-Known Member
your bc separation thing is getting tired Vianna.even though if i was in BC i probabaly wouldwant it too..[jk..]
..
.you know it will NEVER happen..so maybe buck up ..homie ..and act like a Canadian..just not a JT Canadian

you should go back to your original.."the Canadian gov has to legalize it in June because they said they would.." shtick

oh ..maybe because it doesn't look like it will happen....mmm...10 day old canada post delivered pizza..still will taste good

....have a good one dude..
 
VIANARCHRIS

VIANARCHRIS

Well-Known Member
OLD MOTHER SATIVA said:
your bc separation thing is getting tired Vianna.even though if i was in BC i probabaly wouldwant it too..[jk..]
..
.you know it will NEVER happen..so maybe buck up ..homie ..and act like a Canadian..just not a JT Canadian

you should go back to your original.."the Canadian gov has to legalize it in June because they said they would.." shtick

oh ..maybe because it doesn't look like it will happen....mmm...10 day old canada post delivered pizza..still will taste good

....have a good one dude..
Click to expand...
I really don't give a flying fuck what you think about my posts, HOMIE. I've ignored your pathetic posts for months...and you just can't help yourself trying to piss me off, eh HOMIE? How in the fuck does my opinion affect your life so profoundly that you feel the need to tell me how to think or whether I have any fucking interest in remaining Canadian? Please show us where I said cannabis will be legal in JUNE - this isn't Rebel and we don't do fake news or alternate facts when you are quoting me. Maybe you should put me on fucking ignore so I don't offend you with my opinion, HOMIE.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=were+you+born+an+asshole
 
G

gb123

Well-Known Member
Canada’s road to marijuana legalization began in late 2015, after the election of The Liberal Party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. For about a year officials worked to create a list of recommendations concerning legalization, which they released in December of 2016. Legislatively, things got moving in the summer of 2017 and there have been several delays since.

Now we are getting reports that even further delay could be a possibility. Three separate Senate committees are calling for amendments to the legalization bill, with the Senate Aboriginal Peoples Committee calling for a delay of up to a year. They want more time for consultations with native peoples and time to consider the 8 amendments they offered on the legislation.

“Indigenous peoples are entitled to a say in how the government implements the legalization of cannabis,” said Senator Lillian Eva Dyck, who chairs the committee. “They have expressed real concerns to us –the potential for increased harmful effects on indigenous communities on the one hand, and the possibility of losing out on economic opportunities on the other. We must address these issues.”

While it’s true that everyone in Canada should get a say on legalization and its implementation, the old saying about “too many cooks in the kitchen” seems fitting in this case. In theory, amendments could be offered and discussions held ad nauseam for years to come. When everyone has to be consulted every step of the way, what is supposed to be representative government degenerates into stagnation.

For his part, Prime Minister Trudeau still sees 2018 as the year he succeeds in passing one of the major planks of his election-winning platform. “We have been working with our partners across the country to make this happen and we are going to be moving forward this summer on the legalization of cannabis,” he said last week. “Obviously, as I’ve said many times, this is not an event, this is a process, and we will continue to work with our partners in the municipalities, in provinces and Indigenous leadership in communities to make sure we’re doing this right and moving forward in a responsible way.”

Another committee – the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee – wants to ban home cultivation; the current plan is for adults to be allowed to grow up to 4 plants for personal use. The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has warned that home growing could depress property values and create problems with insurance.

In the end, even the most optimistic of activists in Canada has to admit that Trudeau’s plan for legalization is not a done deal and there is no guarantee it will pass this year.
 
The Hippy

The Hippy

Well-Known Member
“Indigenous peoples are entitled to a say in how the government implements the legalization of cannabis,”

Fuck them.....run your own affairs. Stay outta mine!
 
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