EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on Health NUMBER 065 1st SESSION 42nd PARLIAMENT Tuesday, September 12, 2017 Le mardi 12 septembre 2017 Standing Committee on Health CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE September 12, 2017 Committee Edited Evidence * Table of Contents * Number 065 (Official Version) Official Report * Table of Contents * Number 065 (Official Version) Témoignages * Table des matières * Numéro 065 (Version officielle) 65 12 09 2017 2017/09/12 08:30:00 House of Commons Comité permanent de la santé Standing Committee on Health HESA Chair Mr. Bill Casey 42 1

(0830) [ English ]

The Chair (Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland—Colchester, Lib.)) :

Welcome, everybody, to meeting number 65 of the Standing Committee on Health. We welcome our witnesses this morning, and we look forward to their testimony. I'm sure it's going to be very interesting and helpful to us. This morning we have the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police with Thomas Carrique, deputy chief; Mike Serr, deputy chief constable, drug advisory committee; and Lara Malashenko, legal counsel for the Ottawa Police Service.

We also have, from the Ontario Provincial Police, Rick Barnum, deputy commissioner, investigations and organized crime; and John Sullivan, chief superintendent, organized crime, in the enforcement bureau. From the Saskatoon Police Service we have Mark Chatterbok, deputy chief of operations. We've invited each of the groups to have a 10-minute opening statement and then we'll ask questions to each of them. We're going to start with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. I'm not sure how you're going to divide your time. Is one going to take the 10 minutes or are you going to divide it up?

D/Chief Mike Serr (Deputy Chief Constable, Drug Advisory Committee, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police) :

I'll make the opening statement for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

The Chair :

All right, perfect. Take it away.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Thank you very much. Distinguished members of this committee, on behalf of director Mario Harel, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, I am pleased today to be given the opportunity to meet with you. In addition to my role as deputy chief of the Abbotsford Police Department, I am chair of the CACP drug advisory committee. I am joined by York regional deputy police chief, Thomas Carrique, who is chair of the organized crime committee, and Lara Malashenko, a member of the CACP law amendments committee and legal counsel for the Ottawa Police Service.

The mandate of the CACP is safety and security for all Canadians through innovative police leadership. This mandate is accomplished through the activities and special projects of some 20 CACP committees and through active liaison with various levels of government. Ensuring the safety of our citizens and our communities is central to the mission of our membership and their police services. Bill C-45 is a comprehensive bill, and we will address it from a high level in our opening statement. In addition to our appearance today, we are providing you with a detailed written brief for your consideration.

Our role from the beginning has been to share our expertise with the government to help mitigate the impact of this legislation on public safety. Extensive discussions within the CACP membership and various committees form the basis of our advice. We participated in a number of government-held consultations and provided a submission to the federal task force. We produced two discussion papers, entitled “CACP: Recommendations of the Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation” on February 8, 2017, and “Government Introduces Legislation to Legalize Cannabis” on April 28, 2017.

Themes from both discussion papers have been included in our written brief. Police leadership across Canada identified seven key themes specific to this bill that impact policing. These are: training and the impact on police resourcing, personal cultivation and possession, organized crime, medical marijuana, packaging and labelling, return of property, and youth and public education. Police leadership also identified that drug-impaired driving and our ability to effectively manage it will impact policing. However, we will leave this theme to be addressed under Bill C-46 .

We would like to acknowledge the announcement made by the federal government on September 8, 2017 with respect to the allocation of funding. We are interested in learning the details related to the distribution of funds dedicated to our federal, provincial, and municipal police resources. We wish to emphasize that administering police services requires the necessary training, tools, and technology to assist with addressing public safety concerns, and disrupting the involvement of organized crime in the illicit cannabis market.

In order to support the successful implementation of this comprehensive legislation, the CACP urges the Government of Canada to first consider extending the July 2018 commencement date to allow police services to obtain sufficient resources and proper training, both of which are critical to the successful implementation of the proposed cannabis act . Second, we ask that an established legislative framework be put in place prior to legalization that will provide law enforcement with clear direction and assistance regarding funding and training.

Third, provide sufficient detail to allow law enforcement to assess the availability of funding, recognizing the need for a more standardized and consistent approach among provinces and territories, vis-à-vis the implementation of police resources necessary for the legalization of marijuana, and the need to obtain further guidance regarding the training of front-line officers, which would include plant seizure and identification of illicit cannabis. Fourth, increase funding for public education and youth programs and the issuance of tickets under the ticketing provisions of the act.

Fifth, due to the foreseeable concerns surrounding personal cultivation and enforcement, we ask the provisions permitting adults to grow up to four marijuana plants be revoked. The CACP predicts that these provisions would be problematic to enforce, would provide additional opportunities for the illegal sale of marijuana, and would pose a further risk to youth due to increased exposure and accessibility. We were pleased to see in the September 8, 2017 announcement that Finance Canada will consult on a new tax regime on cannabis.

This is critically important because, despite the proposed cannabis act , organized crime will continue to look for opportunities to exploit the market and to profit. We will continue to advocate that the cost of legal cannabis remain as low, or lower, than cannabis sold on the black market in order to discourage price undercutting and illicit sales. We would also ask the federal government to enact strict security clearance requirements, which would ensure that criminal organizations do not become involved as licensed growers, which has been observed under the medical regime.

(0835) Police agencies must prioritize drug investigations on the basis of public safety. It is well documented that many police agencies are currently concentrating on the opioids that are responsible for an unprecedented number of overdose deaths. However, it is important, as we move to a regulated regime for cannabis, to recognize that strict enforcement is necessary at the onset to protect youth and help disrupt organized crime.

While the commitment made on September 8 to provide funding to policing to enforce a proposed cannabis act is positive, questions still remain in regard to how this money will be allocated. We wish to reiterate that dedicated police cannabis enforcement teams are necessary to disrupt organized crime and keep cannabis out of the hands of our youth.

Given the infiltration of organized crime into the medical marijuana industry, the CACP recommends merging the cannabis act with the access to cannabis for medical purposes regulations to avoid confusion, to align the efforts of Health Canada and law enforcement agencies, and to limit organized crime activity by reducing the number of licensed producers and distributors.

The CACP recommends that packaging requirements be stringent, in order to provide clear labelling to allow police to identify between legal and illegal cannabis, and to give users adequate information to make informed choices about their cannabis consumption. We further recommend that labelling include notice regarding penalties for providing cannabis to youth as a further protection mechanism and deterrent. The CACP has concerns regarding the return of property provisions that appear to require the police to maintain and return seized cannabis plants.

Police services across Canada do not have the facilities or resources to accomplish this. Accordingly, we ask the act to address these concerns by relieving police services of any responsibility associated with the deterioration of seized cannabis plants or having to provide compensation. Lastly, there should be a continued focus on protecting youth through education and other non-Criminal Code means. The cannabis act, for example, will permit youth to possess or social-share five grams or less, which is inconsistent with the bill's intended objectives.

Examples from Colorado and Washington have demonstrated that legalization may encourage increased marijuana consumption among youth. Therefore, police-driven education on the effects of marijuana use is critical to discourage consumption by youth. Our recommendations are not intended to dispute the government's intention of restricting, regulating, and legalizing cannabis use in Canada. Instead, we bring these issues forward because the answers remain unknown.

We are concerned about the impact of this act and, as previously stated, we have the responsibility to mitigate the impact on public safety, which is our primary goal from a policing perspective. We certainly commend the government for its commitment to consultation with stakeholders and the public. We also commend the efforts of ministers, parliamentarians, and public servants who are dedicated to bring forward the most comprehensive legislation with a mutual goal of putting forward a responsible framework prior to legalization and recognizing that the world is watching Canada throughout this process.

In the interests of public safety and preserving the quality of life that we are fortunate to enjoy in Canada, we appreciate the opportunity to share our crime prevention and law enforcement experience with the government. We recognize that illicit drugs are a global issue that dramatically affects local communities, families, and individuals.

As the world watches Canada throughout this complex process, we are committed to working with the government and the Canadian public to ensure that comprehensive regulations that mitigate the public safety concerns associated with cannabis are established prior to legalization. We support many of the overall goals of the act while recognizing that other stakeholders are better equipped to provide specialized knowledge in the area of public health and in social services.

We also support efforts to deter and reduce criminal activity by imposing serious criminal penalties for those breaking the law, especially those who import and export cannabis and who provide cannabis to youth. Sincere thanks are extended to all members of this committee for allowing the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police the opportunity to offer comment and suggestions on Bill C-45 . We look forward to answering your questions. Thank you.

(0840) The Chair :

Thank you for your very comprehensive brief, verbal and written. Now we go to the Ontario Provincial Police Deputy Commissioner Barnum.

D/Commr Rick Barnum (Deputy Commissioner, Investigation and Organized Crime, Ontario Provincial Police) :

Good morning, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee here today. As Ontario's provincial police service, the OPP has a unique mandate. The OPP delivers front-line policing services to more than 70% of Ontario municipalities, which is over 13 million people. It is also responsible for a wide array of programs and services for the province, including criminal investigation, technical expertise, indigenous policing, traffic safety, and specialized response.

In particular, the investigations and organized crime command is dedicated to safeguarding Ontario's communities against those individuals or groups involved in organized and serious crime. We are committed to engagement and education augmented by enforcement to reduce harm and victimization. In preparation for the proposed Bill C-45 , it is important to consider the impact this act will have on policing operations across the country. As a member of the CACP, the OPP supports the comments and recommendations presented here by our esteemed colleagues.

My remarks today will focus on those key elements within the legislation that are most alarming for the Ontario Provincial Police and could, if not implemented in a strategic and staged approach, compromise the safety and well-being of Ontarians. The first subject I would like to address is the cultivation of cannabis within the home. The OPP is concerned about the impact home production will have on our communities and does not support the federal approach of growing up to four cannabis plants per residence.

A number of risk factors arise with personal cultivation, including exposure to youth; health and safety matters, such as mould and fire hazards; overproduction; and the potential for trafficking. The report provided to the standing committee by the CACP highlights the exploitation that has occurred under the various medical marijuana schemes, and it is the OPP's belief that this abuse would be even more prevalent under the recreational system. Even though Health Canada currently estimates that one indoor plant will yield 28 grams, this does not represent the reality of marijuana cultivation.

OPP drug enforcement experts estimate average yields of 60 to 100 grams per indoor plant. Likewise, most indoor cannabis plants grow to a height of approximately four feet, exceeding the 100-centimetre restriction. If we consider a 200-unit housing complex in any urban or suburban centre, where half the units cultivate four marijuana plants, or more, we can estimate anywhere from 400 to 600 plants being grown in one building throughout the year without proper ventilation or adequate electrical capacity and in close proximity to children. This scenario would severely jeopardize public safety.

In addition, we may see a rise in home or property invasions, known to police as “grow rips”. The frequency of these occurrences in communities policed by the OPP has steadily increased over the past three years and continues to increase. OPP experts expect that they will encounter a hefty workload and investigative pressures related to the overproduction of marijuana in the home; possession limits; break, enter, and thefts; and the diversion to the illicit market. All of these cannot be adequately managed within existing resource allocations.

I would now like to bring your attention to the challenges related to training. Given the tight timelines of federal legalization, the OPP, like many policing partners, is apprehensive about the level of our enforcement readiness come July 2018. There are approximately 6,000 uniformed members of the OPP who will require training on the laws and the ticketing system. It is anticipated that there will be significant cost implications for additional training resources and tools to ensure that officers are aware of their authorities and the proper procedures.

The OPP foresees numerous challenges as we transition to a new enforcement environment. How will officers determine weight for possession charges? Will confusion occur around possession age and limits for different forms of cannabis? How will police agencies manage seizures and return of property? Will validation testing occur? What will the police role within the Health Canada inspection process look like? Bill C-45 , in the subsequent training and enforcement considerations, will also greatly impact Ontario's indigenous policing programs, including the 20 indigenous communities administered by the OPP.

Some communities are already experiencing a substance abuse crisis, and it is feared that there will be additional health impacts, particularly for indigenous youth, when cannabis is legalized. It is expected that indigenous police services, whose resources are already underfunded and which are unable to increase capacity, will experience significant enforcement challenges as well.

(0845) One of the greatest concerns for the OPP is the protection of youth, including indigenous youth. The OPP recognizes that difficulties will arise in attempting to enforce youth possession and the social sharing of cannabis. It is our belief that social sharing opens the door for illicit drug trafficking to be concealed as sharing among youth. Although the federal legislation sets a minimum age of 18 and permits youth to possess and distribute up to five grams of cannabis, the OPP supports a minimum age of 19, with a zero possession limit for youth below the minimum age.

This would allow for ticketing for youth possession, consumption, and sharing of cannabis as a provincial offence, along with the authority to seize cannabis from young persons. It is the OPP's view that a provincial ticketing mechanism will prevent youth from entering the criminal justice system when charged with cannabis-related offences. In co-operation with the provincial government and our policing and community partners, the OPP will engage in an education campaign directed at youth to address the new possession laws, drug-impaired driving, and the dangers of illicit cannabis.

With respect to organized crime, it is difficult to deny the opportunities for criminal enterprise in the cannabis marketplace. The illegal cannabis trade generates billions of dollars annually and has established a foothold within the medical marijuana industry. The OPP has investigated dozens of medical marijuana grow operations authorized by Health Canada where plant yields grossly exceed the permitted amounts. For example, while investigating a grow operation in a commercial building, it was determined that a total of 508 plants could be grown under four Health Canada authorizations.

In fact, we found that 979 plants were located in the building. Some of the mature plants were between eight and nine feet tall. If we applied the Health Canada yield estimate, the 508 plants should have produced 31 pounds of dried marijuana. Instead, the actual yield was 2,032 pounds. If not seized by police, this illicit product would have been sent to street-level dealers and supplied to illegal dispensaries throughout the province.

While the Ontario government has announced plans to pursue an enforcement strategy to shut down illegal operations, it is anticipated that these dispensaries will continue to pose problems for law enforcement, and that, just like the contraband tobacco industry, organized crime will seek to subvert the legal cannabis retail system by selling it at a lower price. This includes the sale of seeds, cloned plants, and dried cannabis. The federal government must ensure that pricing for marijuana is reasonable; if not, it will promote growth in the illicit trade.

It is also the OPP's belief that Health Canada's security clearance processes do not go far enough to prevent the infiltration of organized crime in the medical marijuana industry. As the legalization of cannabis approaches, individuals who make applications to own and administer federally regulated production facilities, along with their employees, and any contract businesses, must be subjected to a more rigorous screening process. We also support this approach for the provincial retail environment. A lack of oversight in the production and sale of cannabis will also increase the likelihood for abuse.

Further, the OPP backs the recommendations put forward by the CACP to combine the medical and retail cannabis production models, and, as such, eliminate the personal and medical production authorizations. This streamlined structure would assist the OPP and our policing partners in tackling illicit grow operations controlled by organized crime. In closing, it is important for the federal government to provide clear direction to impacted stakeholders and consider time frame extensions in order to ensure the successful implementation of this act.

The OPP appreciates that the legalization of cannabis, marijuana, is a complex process, and that we as a provincial police organization have a significant role to play. The members of the OPP are committed to upholding the laws of Canada. We look forward to working within the legislative construct provided to ensure that our communities remain safe and our youth and vulnerable persons are protected. On behalf of the OPP, once again, I am very pleased to contribute to this forum. Thank you.

(0850) The Chair :

Thank you very much for your contribution. Now we go to the Saskatoon Police Service, Deputy Chief Mark Chatterbok.

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok (Deputy Chief of Operations, Saskatoon Police Service) :

Good morning, distinguished members of this committee. My name is Mark Chatterbok. I'm the deputy chief of operations for the Saskatoon Police Service. I'm also the co-chair of the human resources and learning committee for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, along with Steve Schnitzer from the Justice Institute of British Columbia. I am pleased to be here with you today to offer a perspective from the Saskatoon Police Service, as we, like all municipal police services across the country, look ahead to the implementation of Bill C-45 .

I would like to begin by telling you a bit about some of the challenges currently faced in our community and province and how the careful and thoughtful implementation of new legislation is vital. Saskatoon has been a city of rapid growth and economic boom, largely due to its resource sector, but in recent years the growth and the economy have slowed. This has resulted in changing pressures on policing. We have seen an increase in property-related offences. Much of this increase is related to the illicit drug trade, specifically methamphetamine.

We have seen a consistency in the percentage of our citizens who live each day at a socio-economic disadvantage. Some become subject to addiction and criminal victimization, become involved in criminal activity, and live in poor housing conditions or become homeless. While this is a larger and broader community issue, it contributes to the overall environment in which we police. I would like to address the topic of impaired driving. We anticipate that as a result of new legislation the number of impaired drivers will only increase.

This increase will be realized in a city and a province where impaired statistics are already far too high. Saskatchewan has had a long and unfortunate distinction of having the highest rates of impaired driving in the country. In an effort to reduce those numbers, the province introduced new legislation to toughen penalties for impaired driving, including a zero tolerance for motorists under 21 years of age who are impaired by alcohol or drugs. As a police service, we are already proactive in terms of impaired driving enforcement.

Each year, we conduct numerous impaired driving spot checks and openly communicate these spot checks to the public through traditional and social media, yet our numbers still remain high. As a result, the Saskatoon Police Service has concerns about an increase in impaired driving due to drugs or a combination of alcohol and drugs. As our chief of police, Clive Weighill, has publicly stated, he would like to know what happens when a driver already found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.07 also has the presence of THC in his or her blood.

Technically, this driver may be under the legal limit for both individual substances, but what effect does the presence of both of these drugs have on impairment? There were 43 homicides in 2015 in Saskatchewan. That compares to 53 people killed as a result of impaired driving in Saskatchewan for the same year. In a province with a population the size of Saskatchewan's, those numbers are very concerning. Unfortunately, our police service has yet to see a significant shift in behaviour when it comes to alcohol-impaired driving.

As a result, we strongly recommend considerable federal investment in public education prior to legislative implementation. We support the proposed amendments in Bill C-46 , and the Saskatoon Police Service wants to be a part of the successful implementation for legislative change. We believe this will require continued collaboration by all levels of government and support for law enforcement agencies, especially for our front-line officers, who will be facing the impact of these changes on a day-to-day basis.

As we move closer to the date for legalization, the importance of creating a strategy to educate the public is becoming increasingly important. We echo the CACP's position that the development of such a strategy should begin immediately. A public education strategy should focus specifically on information for youth, parents, and vulnerable populations. This component needs to be developed with input from all appropriate agencies, and the police would like to be a part of this conversation and preparation. Such a strategy should be non-judgmental, relatable, open-minded, and understandable.

Education programs should provide real information, and evidence needs to be developed to resonate with this target audience. We will need to work closely with health and the school boards to adequately deliver this information to youth in our communities. Achieving a unified position will require close co-operation. Resources in our schools are already at capacity in terms of delivering drug awareness and other programming to youth, and this legislation will only increase the demand for delivery of more education. I would now like to discuss the impact this legislation will have on police training.

Considerable training will be needed in order to have specially trained officers able to detect persons who are impaired from drugs.

(0855) According to the Colorado State Patrol, drivers who were stopped and found to be impaired by marijuana had been pulled over 91% of the time as a result of speeding. Studies in Colorado also showed that the number of drivers testing positive for THC was highest during daytime hours. We know that daytime is considered the peak time, when the highest number of vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians are using the roadways. Both of these statistics verify the need for specialized training for our front-line officers.

The Saskatoon Police Service currently has 11 drug recognition experts trained, and I anticipate that we will need to at least double this number in the very near future. I expect this will also be the case for many other police agencies across the country. However, this training is expensive; it is currently offered only in the United States; and there is limited capacity, which means this training is often delayed until a space becomes available.

For many agencies this training will be cost prohibitive, which may ultimately result in delays at the roadside, yet the courts—and justifiably so—will not see this as a bona fide reason to deny people their charter rights. As a result, I would strongly recommend that the federal government provide the funding and assistance required to implement a DRE program here in Canada, which will help to address the training costs and capacity issues I have mentioned.

One of our concerns is regarding the unknown; specifically, not knowing to a great degree what impact this new legislation will have on our existing resources. Our resources are already stretched in many different directions. The Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners recently hired a consulting firm to conduct a review of our operations, and the study found that the amount of time our front-line officers have available to conduct proactive activities is 29%, with a suggested goal of 40%.

We already know that major drug investigations take considerable time and specialized resources and they are very expensive to conduct. Can we expect that the number of major drug investigations will increase with this legislation? I believe we can. There is the potential for an increase in what I would describe as regular complaints to the police; for example, neighbour disputes, domestic disputes, suspicious activity, and so on. We know that alcohol is often a contributing factor in these types of complaints. The unanswered question is whether or not the usage of marijuana will have similar results.

Many municipal agencies, including in Saskatchewan, have identified possible hidden costs that may arise with the new legislation. They would come in the form of social issues, which typically fall to the front-line police officers to deal with. I will end my time by commenting on the proposed legislation around personal cultivation and possession within a dwelling. The Saskatoon Police Service supports the concerns raised by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and recommends that personal cultivation be reconsidered.

We do not support home growing regardless of size and number of plants, as this will create opportunities for diversion, and it will increase complaints of overproduction, which will be difficult to investigate and will have a negative impact on our existing resources. Arguably, home growing will provide more opportunity for cannabis to get into the hands of children. In closing, as a municipal police agency that will be on the front lines of the implementation and impact of Bill C-45 , the Saskatoon Police Service wishes to express its appreciation for the government's commitment to consultation of stakeholders.

We support the government's desire to implement the most effective legislation possible. We are committed to protect the public safety and to serve our citizens on a daily basis no matter what challenges we face. On behalf of the Saskatoon Police Service, I appreciate your kind invitation to present our comments to you here this morning. Thank you.

(0900) The Chair :

Thank you for providing them. Now we will start our seven-minute round of questions, and we're going to start with Dr. Eyolfson.

Mr. Doug Eyolfson (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for coming. We appreciate your efforts in this. My first question is regarding what I think you said, Mr. Serr, that the usage of marijuana among youth in Colorado has increased since legalization. Did you say that?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

The reports that we've seen say originally it had increased. We have now seen in more recent reports that it has started to stabilize, but the early reports from Colorado once it was legalized indicated there was an increase in youth consumption, correct.

Mr. Doug Eyolfson :

I have a communication from the attorney general of Colorado that cites multiple surveys, including from JAMA Pediatrics , which says that basically it was in line with the national average. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health actually showed that in between legalization—before it was legalized and afterwards—youth use in Colorado had declined by 12%. That is the main finding they're citing.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

There are a significant number of reports out there regarding youth usage. I am not exactly sure of the one you referenced, but I have seen reports that estimated an increase of approximately 20% at the onset. I saw a report a week ago indicating that youth usage has now stabilized and is slightly below the national average in the United States. There was at the onset a public education message to youth about the dangers of cannabis use for adults and youth. Our indication was that initially usage went up.

Mr. Doug Eyolfson :

I couldn't agree more about education for youth; I think that's a key part of what needs to be done. There were some concerns expressed about home cultivation, particularly regarding increased exposure to youth, who might be able to get at it. I brought up this example previously. We've had legalized home-brewing of beer and wine forever. Is there any evidence that there has been significant diversion of home-brewed wine and beer to underaged people? Is this an ongoing problem we've had to deal with?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

I don't think we have any statistics on that kind of diversion, but we anticipate that home-grows will be much higher than what we see with home-brewing. We think we'll see a lot more home-growing than home-brewing, and that's why we have a much more significant concern about that. It's not just about the access—it also has to do with the quality of the product. In our experience with grow operations, we have encountered moulds in the residences as well as dangers imposed by the electrical systems.

Also, it will cause more confusion for our officers on the road, who are having to attend calls, and now have to address somebody who may have two or three or four extra plants or a plant that's 50 centimetres taller than what it should be. The lesson we have learned from watching Colorado is to start restrictive and start slow. Then slowly, as we start to unravel this legislation, we can begin to look at some other opportunities. Certainly, we'd like to see it more restrictive, with no home-grows.

Mr. Doug Eyolfson :

Certainly, yes. There was a scenario that was stated—I don't remember who said it—but it asked what would happen if you had a 200-unit apartment block and half of them had home-grows. Do we have any data to suggest that half of the units in a 200-unit block would be growing plants?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

That was my scenario. I don't have any evidence that would prove that, but neither do I have any evidence that it won't happen. When you open the legislation, our position is that there's no need to do it when we're going to have a legalized system where people can access marijuana. Yesterday, on my way here, I listened to a documentary on the CBC. A bunch of landlords had got together and talked about this. They're very concerned about how they're going to protect their buildings if home-grows are legal.

(0905) Mr. Doug Eyolfson :

I agree completely with everyone here. Everyone agrees that we need resources for training. We've talked about the money that the federal government is committing to this. One of the things that was mentioned is increased training in recognition of plants and grow ops. I know that your forces all have experience with grow ops. How much additional training would be involved? I would imagine that already officers know how to recognize these plants and how to recognize grow ops. How much additional training would be needed? I'm not talking about the other issues, like impaired driving. I'm just talking about recognition and dealing with grow ops.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

One of the challenges for us with the training is that we haven't even been able to start preparing any training, because at this point we don't know what is going to be encompassed in the legislation, whether it's provincial, federal, or municipal. We're sort of in a holding pattern. Certainly at the onset we are going to have to ensure that our members understand completely the legislation and their authorities under it, provincially and federally. In talking to directors of police academies, we realize that they cannot start their preparations until we have the final legislation from all levels of government.

That is where we're concerned and challenged. As far as how long that will take, that's difficult for us to answer right now because we do not yet have all the answers we need to make informed decisions about what that our training will encompass.

Mr. Doug Eyolfson :

Right. I don't have any further questions.

The Chair :

We'll move to Ms. Gladu.

Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today. I took very seriously all of the comments that you made about the possible harms, so I would like to ask each one of you, in light of all of the things that could be very harmful to public safety, do you think that the government should be proceeding with legalizing marijuana outside the medical regime?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Mark, do you want to take that one first?

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

That's a difficult question for me to answer because my expertise certainly doesn't lie in that area. I think the comments that I made earlier were more with respect to community safety, impact on our resources, and impact on our ability to train our officers to be prepared for when the legislation is in place. In reference to your specific question, I would have to refer to one of my colleagues on that.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

In regard to legalization, we support many of the goals and objectives of legalization. If done right, if invested in properly, if we take our time and do this appropriately, we would have the ability to disrupt organized crime—certainly not eliminate it, we're not naive—but certainly disrupt the current share it has in the market, through education like we have with cigarettes and impaired driving to teach and educate our youth about the dangers of drug use, but it has to be done correctly.

Overall, we support a lot of the objectives, but we have some concerns with the implementation and about taking the right approach, taking a very methodical, systematic approach, to ensure that this is done correctly so that we don't see some of the issues that originally hit Colorado and others.

D/Chief Thomas Carrique (Deputy Chief, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police) :

To add to my colleague's comments, I think it is very important to distinguish between legalization and decriminalization and the importance that will be found in the regulations. We do look forward to working with the government to ensure that there are robust regulations. Those regulations are going to be relied upon heavily to be able to identify and disrupt organized crime and also to protect the most valuable asset in our country and in our communities, which is our youth.

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

It's an interesting question. I worked in drug enforcement for 12 years and have been in thousands of marijuana grows, and in all kinds of undercover, street-level situations. I've seen youth break into houses and cars and turn that money right into money to purchase, or turn those properties right into money to purchase, marijuana. I've stood right beside it when that's happened. I think there's a huge opportunity here to fix a lot of these issues. I have great concerns about the home-grow challenges.

From everything that I've seen over my time in policing, along with my colleagues who have a very similar background to mine, I have great concern about making it right for our youth. I read all the studies on Ontario and you can see the number of youth who are using marijuana. It's very clear, so we need to do something. This is another great opportunity to get it right. I have concerns about home-grows. I have concerns that organized crime is deeply involved in the medical marijuana system. I have a package that will show you this, in much more detail than when I spoke in my few minutes.

We have a chance to get organized crime out of this, we really do, so we have to get the administration process low. We have to be streamlined and we have to make sure the inspection processes are detailed and thorough so we can eradicate organized crime from this problem. I also hugely agree that if legislation is ready to go in July 2018, policing will not be ready to go August 1; it's impossible. The damage that can be done between the time of new legislation and police officers being ready to enforce the law in six months or a year can make it very hard for us to ever regain that foothold.

Those would be my concerns and cautions from my lived experience as a police officer on the streets working specifically in drug enforcement. I think we're very close. I agree that something had to change. This is a great step, but we have to do it right and do it slowly and properly.

(0910) Ms. Marilyn Gladu :

In 290 days, would the CACP also agree that it is not going to be ready to go and to be able to implement anything?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Yes, we've stated that we need to know everything about this legislation from provincial, federal, municipal levels before we can really start to prepare, so we are asking that the government consider giving us more time to have all the legislation fully in place, which will allow us to properly train and prepare for the implementation on day one.

Ms. Marilyn Gladu :

I definitely agree it needs to be done right rather than rushing it. I was interested in your comments about possession limits. I agree that in order to send the right message to young people ages 12 to 17, zero is the right amount that they should have. I like the idea of making it ticketed so they don't have any criminal offence that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. What do you think about the possession limits that are set for an adult at 30 grams? Do you have any guidance in that light?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

I can take that one. That was a topic of much dialogue on our committee. There are two sides to that coin. In one sense, if you make it too difficult for people to purchase cannabis—if it's challenging for them and they don't have reasonable access to a certain amount—that will certainly make the market vulnerable to organized crime, which could fill that void. Obviously we don't want to see it made too high, because that opens up the possibility of diversion of the product.

In regard to the 30 grams, we are mindful that it is approximately 60 marijuana joints, but we're also mindful that if it is not enough, people may not choose to go into a store—or wherever it is—to buy it, and may look to other avenues. At this point, after much discussion and debate, we would certainly not want to see it any higher; 30 grams would be the maximum limit that we would want to see it set at.

Ms. Marilyn Gladu :

Very good, thank you. My other question has to do with organized crime. We heard testimony that organized crime is involved, even in medical marijuana. Regardless of what legislation we put in place, I guess I personally don't believe that organized crime is going to say, “Well, you're right, we've had a good run at it but, you know, laws are in place now, so let's just license and do things by the book and go along with that.” Do you really believe that this legislation will fix the problem of organized crime being involved?

D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

This legislation will not eliminate organized crime, but there is an opportunity to mitigate the impact organized crime has on our communities. That opportunity will be found in improved regulations, and security clearances that are not limited to just the principals of the companies or licence-holders, but the investors, the contractors, and the suppliers, extending beyond just a basic security clearance check and getting into forensic financial audits. If you follow the money, you will find the organized crime. It is currently a $7-billion illicit industry in this country.

There are over 300 criminal organizations currently involved in the production, distribution, importation, or exportation of cannabis. We can mitigate it, but we cannot eliminate it.

The Chair :

Your time is up. Mr. Davies.

Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP) :

Thank you for being here today. I'm getting a very clear message from all of you. It was said most clearly by Officer Barnum, I think. “We will not be ready August 1. That's impossible.” I think those were your words. Let's say the government presses ahead with this artificial deadline of July 2018 and you're not ready. The next day, tell me what that looks like for your police forces. What are the consequences of you not being ready?

(0915) D/Commr Rick Barnum :

What it looks like is still up in the air for us. It depends when we start getting information about what the legislation is going to look like. If we have a good heads-up, let's say, six or seven months out, we can start to work; we'll prioritize. We'll analyze all of our statistics, where things are happening, which highways are of concern from the impaired perspective, where we believe certain groups may challenge us with a lot of home-grows or organized crime, and that type of thing. We'll try to do the best we can to get that foothold and maintain that foothold without letting things get out of control.

It's so dependent on what the legislation looks like, for starters, when we get it, and when we will have time to get our training and act together to respond to the legislation. It's a tough one to answer hard and fast for you, but the reality is the sooner we get it, the better off we'll be, and much will depend on what it looks like.

D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

If I may add to the Deputy Commissioner's comments, one of the impacts we want to keep in mind in terms of rushing legislation and police not being prepared through adequate training is this: if we don't have the proper knowledge and the proper training, that can lead to poor decisions, which can result in bad case law for new legislation. Our opportunity to get it right will solidify the sustainability of the laws before the courts. That's why training is so important to us.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thank you. You're all provincial and municipal police forces. We all know this system is going to require provincial regulation decisions and perhaps even municipal ones when it comes landlord and tenant matters. How much of what you need to know is going to be dependent on the provincial and municipal regulatory system that has yet to be determined?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

A significant amount has been left to the provinces: the mode of sale, the age, and the home-grows will be part of their mandate. So there's a lot that we are still waiting for from the provincial government that we will require even prior to being able to draft our training. Also, we need to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place. We talked about our concerns regarding the seizure of plants and our ability to manage that. What different facilities we will need is still a question that we need to answer in order to manage our seizures of cannabis and elsewhere. For us, there is a lot left to be answered before we can even begin the process.

Mr. Don Davies :

Okay. One of the purposes of the act is “to protect public health and public safety and, in particular, to”, according to paragraph 7(e), “reduce the burden on the criminal justice system in relation to cannabis”. On July 1 or whenever this happens, is this scheme of legislation going to reduce the burden on the criminal justice system, from your point of view?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

We don't believe so. We look again to lessons learned from Colorado and Washington state, and in fact, they did find that there was an increased capacity at the onset. As we stated, it's critically important that at the onset we be very vigorous in our enforcement to ensure compliance with the new regulations. This is a brand new system, and we need to make sure that we do it right and we are fairly strict with the enforcement. We know that in 2016, I believe, there were approximately 16,000 or 17,000 charges for simple possession of marijuana, but we think those will be replaced with ticketing.

They'll be replaced with nuisance calls. They will be replaced if, unfortunately, we do go forward with personal grows, with us having to manage those grow operations, which, of course, will be a very time-consuming and onerous process for our officers, who will then have to seize the plants and take them back to a police department or a facility to store them and go through that process. We don't see this, at least at the onset and for several years, as being any sort of time-saving for our staff.

Mr. Don Davies :

Let me put this to you, because it's starting to appear to me that this isn't legalization of cannabis. This is making it less illegal.

Whereas today you can't possess anything in the public street, you would be able to possess 30 grams. You still have to enforce against someone who might have 35 or 40 grams. Presently, you can't cultivate this at home. Well, this legislation will let you cultivate some at home, so you still have to enforce and police, but you'll be busting places that have 10 plants. Then there are the ticketable offences as you pointed out, Chief. It seems to me I don't see any reduction in your job. If anything, by changing to a new regime, it strikes me that you're going to have to train a lot of your officers.

Add the impaired-driving provisions of marijuana on top of that and I don't really see any difference in the burden you have. In fact, if anything, it will be greater. I want to move to Officer Barnum. What is the average size of grow ops that you encounter? How many plants on average would you encounter?

(0920) D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I'm not sure I have the average size. I've been in indoor grow operations with 45,000 to 50,000 plants. I have been in indoor grow operations that have eight or nine plants that have a huge yield and a ton of potential to grow a lot of marijuana. I'm not sure I could give you an average size, sir. It depends on organized crime, on the group, its abilities, whether it has a good electrician, if it knows what it is doing, and the facility.

Mr. Don Davies :

I want to be devil's advocate with you on this a little bit. I would say the average grow op has probably more than four plants. Let me put a couple of things to you. Doesn't it help undercut the black market if you allow people to grow four plants? Then they don't have to get their marijuana from sources that otherwise we wouldn't want them to get it from. Isn't that one way to undercut organized crime?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I'd prefer to use the legal system that's going to be put in place.

Mr. Don Davies :

Okay. With regard to concerns like mould, electricity diversion, and those kinds of things, are those really happening when you have large grow ops? The average household probably has more than four plants in it right now, so by limiting it to four plants, isn't that sort of a reasonable way to avoid those concerns of having large-scale places in your basement, which do lead to mould and electricity diversion? I guess what I'm saying is I think four plants probably wouldn't lead to these fears of electrical diversion and mould. Am I missing something here?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I don't know. It depends on who's doing the grows. If somebody tries to run 2,000-watt bulbs over their four plants, they have to increase the size of electricity; if they want a 14-week turnaround instead of a 40-week soil turnaround to increase their profit; if they are diverting; or if they want a higher quality THC in their plant, these are all things they'll do. The average electrical service in a home won't satisfy that need, so that's going to be a problem.

Let's say you get people clumping together as a group and deciding that, okay, I have a contact, and I can get rid of the weed, but everybody needs to grow four plants, and here's how we're going to do it. We're going to do it based on chemical-based hydroponic grows. Then you're going to have problems with ventilation and that's going to cause mould. Again, you'll have a 14-week turnaround. You'll just be spinning plants through there all the time. There are all kinds of things that can be imagined here.

I think what's important is that we not sit back and think that there are going to be four little plants on the windowsill growing in a little bowl of soil and someday, sometime they're going to produce a little bit of bud and maybe somebody's going to roll a joint. I don't think that's reasonable in today's world. That's not at all what we see and experience.

The Chair :

Thanks very much. We'll now go to Mr. McKinnon.

Mr. Ron McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Lib.) :

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to start with Deputy Commissioner Barnum. You indicated that security checks for licensed producers need to be strengthened. Health Canada currently contracts the RCMP to do their security checks. Do you think there's something wrong with their process, that they don't go far enough, or that they need to add functionality to their process?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Starting with the large grows that will be regulated and licensed, it's important to recognize, in my opinion—and I might be on my own on this one—that is what organized crime will target. That's where the most amount of money they could make would be, and that's our biggest opportunity to get them out. I believe we need more stringent processes than currently exist in the medical marijuana background check area. I look at what we do in Ontario with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission.

When somebody applies for a liquor licence at a bar, or wants a lottery licence for some sort of event, or to run a part-time casino or whatever, there are stringent background checks and, as my colleague mentioned, there are financial checks that take place. It's not just one layer. It's not simply that your name is going to be on the licence and that's it. No, no, no. We need to know who your staff are, where you're getting your money to run this bar, in this case, or where you're getting your money and your funding to run a legal licensed marijuana production facility. Where is that coming from?

We need to do those checks that way. I would say it goes further than a criminal record check, and I agree with what my colleague Tom mentioned earlier, we need lots of layers here. I would say that what we see happening in the medical system is not good enough for what we're going to do in the legal system.

(0925) Mr. Ron McKinnon :

Is the current process just limited to criminal background checks? Is that what you're saying?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Yes.

Mr. Ron McKinnon :

I'm wondering about that. If somebody wants to invest in a plumbing shop, or something where you can make a lot of money, we don't do extensive background checks for legal businesses. If this is a legal business, I'm wondering why we would do that in this respect.

D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

That's a great point, sir. Currently, in legal businesses like a plumbing shop, we may not already have 300 criminal organizations established in an illicit industry, which is what we have today. We also have organized crime groups that have embedded themselves in a medical marijuana framework. This is an opportunity to enhance the current security clearance process to try to identify those organized crime elements and mitigate the impact they're having.

Mr. Ron McKinnon :

Thank you. I'm going to move on. I don't know who mentioned this, but there was some concern expressed that the limit for young people was five grams and that this wasn't low enough. Below that level, it would be in the realm of what the provinces could do in terms of restricting access. It would be a non-criminal matter. So the five-gram limit is not saying it's okay to have less. It's simply saying that we only enter the criminal regime at five grams. Currently in Ontario, for example, you might ticket someone for underage drinking under the provincial rules. Why would this be different from that?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I think we're basically saying we recommend the same. It's just like the Liquor Licence Act. If you're not allowed to possess it because you're underage, then you receive a ticket, or there's an option to give a ticket. It doesn't criminalize or do anything of that nature. That's what we're recommending in Ontario, that it be the same type of process as now exists under the Liquor Licence Act.

We've talked about this extensively and we'd love to see a system where there's some education required, maybe even instead of a ticket we could refer a person, depending on their age and the number of times we've encountered their issue, to an online forum to learn about marijuana and what it does to your developing brain when you're 15 years old. We'd love to divert that way. It would be even better than a ticketing system, but the reality is that it would take a lot of time to get organized and figured out.

So in the first place, we believe that youth don't need to possess it, and we could provide a ticket system if they're caught with three, four, five grams, whatever.

Mr. Ron McKinnon :

So it's certainly within the purview of the provinces to establish those kinds of things.

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Yes, sir.

Mr. Ron McKinnon :

It seems to me that it is a far more effective approach than criminalizing youth. I would ask you whether the five-gram limit, at which point the criminal justice system could be activated, should be raised so that there's more range for provincial intervention in terms of seizures, training, and ticketing for youth.

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Do you want to take that?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

From our perspective, we agree that, for small amounts of possession, we do not want to see it criminalized. We certainly have to advocate to our provinces to ensure that we have a system in place where we can seize marijuana from children and we can prevent it from being socially shared in large volumes in schools, so we're very allied to that. Unfortunately, that's something that we don't have the answers to in most provinces, other than Ontario, and how that will be effectively managed. In regard to raising the five-gram limit, we would be opposed to that.

We think that part of the importance of this act is protecting youth. It's one of the key objectives of the act. The message that we send to our youth about marijuana possession is critical. If we make that limit higher, I think we send a message. I think it is vitally important that youth know that this is not a healthy substance, as you've heard from medical experts. We need to start an education program immediately to ensure they understand that. We would be opposed to increasing that.

We're certainly advocating at the provincial level to give us the tools in order to ensure that no youth are in possession or socially sharing marijuana at all.

(0930) Mr. Ron McKinnon :

You do see some value in being able to charge young people criminally for possession.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

We would certainly want to see that the courts have some options in that regard. As my colleague stated, we are very supportive, for first-time offences, etc., of finding diversion-type programs. We think that is incredibly important for these types of offences. That being said, certainly anybody, whether it be a youth or not, who traffics to other youth, is seen as a very serious offender. If we're going to get a hold of or manage youth consumption in this country, we need to take it very seriously.

Certainly, regarding somebody who is possessing, say six grams for personal use, we would certainly look to the courts to look at different types of opportunities that they have at their hands, such as diversion, to manage this effectively.

The Chair :

Time is up. That completes our seven-minute rounds. We'll go to our five-minute rounds starting with Dr. Carrie.

Mr. Colin Carrie (Oshawa, CPC) :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I really want to thank the witnesses here today. It's a real concern for me that we're not going to get to spend a lot of time with you. I know the Liberals are rushing this through, but being that you're on the front line and you care deeply about the health and safety of Canadians, especially our kids, like we do, it's unfortunate we won't have a lot of time with you.

It's also emphasized, I guess, that we're having a bit of a theoretical conversation today because it really emphasizes that, on the ground, there's no certainty for you yet because it still has to go through the process. It's interesting. From some of our questioning yesterday, the government members think that you should be planning already for this and have everything worked out because we've been talking about it for two years since the Prime Minister made this surprise election promise. Anyway, I do want to see how this is filtering down to the ground.

We have asked provinces and territories to come, and only one decided to come, Saskatchewan. Ontario did announce that they have a plan. Because Ontario didn't want to come, I thought, deputy Commissioner Barnum, you could give us a couple of ideas on your initial thoughts on Premier Wynne's plan. I was wondering if you could tell us what you were glad to see, things that weren't in the bill, and specifically how you plan to address homegrown.

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Well, I do like my paycheque, so I'll be careful on my comments.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

If you think that's in jeopardy, please.

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

No, I understand that. I can't elaborate much more on what we talked about already this morning on what we think is vitally important. Again—

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Is there anything in her plan to address home-grow?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I haven't seen it. I'm not saying it's not there, I'm saying it hasn't been shared with us exactly what the Government of Ontario plans to do with home-grow. What we've seen is essentially what's been released publicly.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Okay. I haven't seen anything either. I want to talk a little bit about the rationale of the Liberals. Initially it was a promise. It was a surprise for everybody, but they've developed a rationale. One of the points was that the status quo is not working. We had witnesses yesterday. This is not true. They've refuted it with publicly available statistics that there is a trending down for youth marijuana use. The second narrative they're coming up with is: keep the problems from organized crime. Again, the RCMP said yesterday that's not true. Even, Deputy Commissioner Barnum, you mentioned that, and I think, Mr.

Carrique, you said you're not going to get it out of organized crime. I want to talk about the third thing they keep saying, that this is going to keep it out of the hands of kids. The bill before us has zero repercussions for youth between 12 and 17. You mentioned social sharing. You talked about the problems with home cultivation, the potential for crime, and even youth being targeted by organized crime for distribution. We're talking about 12-year-olds here and, in public school, they're the old kids. When I was in public school, everybody looked up to the older kids.

Is there anything in this bill that you see that's going to help keep marijuana out of the hands of kids? Maybe we could start with Mr. Serr.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

In regard to this bill specifically, we've seen the penalties for trafficking to youth, and the seriousness of that is imposed. That is important to us. In regard to us being able to effectively manage it, no; we're having to advocate to the provinces to give us the ability to, first off, seize marijuana from youth. Then there's what type of mechanism will be put in place, whether it be a ticketing mechanism or not. We don't know the answer to that. Under this bill, as I said, the trafficking to youth has been identified as a significant penalty, but beyond that, we don't have a lot of tools for specifically addressing youth in it.

(0935) Mr. Colin Carrie :

Yes, I'm not seeing it either. I'm looking at their rationale, and really it's been deconstructed here just in the first couple of days of witnesses. Another question has been brought to my attention. How do you determine the difference between legal and illegal cannabis, especially considering that home cultivation is allowed under the bill in its current form?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

The short answer is that we can't.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Okay. Do you believe, given the timeline proposed by the Liberals to have marijuana legal in Canada, that enough is being done to address public education? We heard from a witness yesterday that for marijuana education they put aside I think $9 million. For tobacco it's $38 million. We already know a lot about tobacco. Most people who smoke, as I think a witness said, know it's a bad thing, and we're spending $38 million on that. Do you see $9 million making much of a dent in an educational program?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

We will advocate that we absolutely need public messaging. The lesson we learned from Colorado and Washington state was that you need to start now. We needed to start a year ago, quite frankly. There are some misconceptions out there about youth and drug-impaired driving and the dangers. Many haven't seen the same risks they see with alcohol. In regard to how much money we need, I can't specifically answer that question because we still don't know what we don't know on some sides of the legislation.

I can say that we absolutely need to invest in a very robust, continuous program of educating not only the youth but also parents, teachers, and the public about the dangers of youth consumption and the dangers imposed by marijuana consumption.

The Chair :

Your time is up. Sorry. Mr. Ayoub.

Mr. Ramez Ayoub (Thérèse-De Blainville, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. [ Translation ] I would like to ask you some questions about the current situation. You work in the field. So you know what is happening, in the streets, in the schools, and with young people. Are young people using at the moment? I assume the answer is yes, but is that the reality? In your opinion, Mr. Barnum, is cannabis being used by young people at the moment?

[ English ]

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Yes.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Ramez Ayoub :

Do we have enough resources? Are we dealing with this problem adequately at the moment?

[ English ]

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Are you speaking about there being enough staff specifically from an enforcement perspective, or...?

Mr. Ramez Ayoub :

Any kind of solution. Do you feel that you have the tools to address the problem right now?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

No, I think we could always use more people to work with the youth in our communities to make sure they understand about the harmful impacts of any type of drugs.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Ramez Ayoub :

What I want to get to is that this is an ongoing situation. We can always do better and improve. Crime is always a factor; it is never the same, it goes up and down, and you have to adjust to it. Most people who work in this industry say that the current situation is not working. For 100 years, we have been operating in the same way, but, in our modern world, we see that our young people are the greatest users of marijuana in the OECD countries. So we have to change our way of doing things. If I understand your remarks correctly, we have to seize the opportunity to do better.

But you are saying that we have some challenges to address in order to be ready. My sense is that we can never be 100% ready. At the moment, we are not ready to manage the current situation properly. You can always improve, you can always have more employees, you can always do more. I would like to know if you keep statistics on crimes that are directly linked to cannabis, such as impaired driving or possession. Do you have figures like those you provide for drinking and driving?

Each time I ask that question to members of police forces, they have more statistics on drinking and driving than they have on cannabis. Do you have specific statistics for cannabis that compare to those for drinking and driving? Do you have statistics of that kind?

(0940) [ English ]

D/Chief Mike Serr :

We don't have that statistic with us. Certainly in regard in drunk driving or impaired driving we are preparing a response on behalf of the CACP for Bill C-46 in which we'll be able to drill down further into some of those statistics to get a better understanding of that.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Ramez Ayoub :

I would really like you to send the committee the statistics you have at the moment, so that we can compare before and after. In terms of preparation, I am a little perplexed. You say to wait until the legislation is passed. It will include some special features, and I understand that you have to wait for those in order to make sure that you have a precise viewpoint. That said, I would like to know what steps you are taking in the meantime in order to get ready. Are you doing nothing as you wait for the legislation to be passed, or are you making preparations in the meantime?

After all, we have been talking for more than two years about adopting legislation to legalize cannabis in Canada. I am sure that you are working on it. I would have liked you to tell us about it, and if you are not able to give me an answer in the 45 seconds that remain, could you send us a report on your state of preparations and on the way you propose to achieve the goal?

[ English ]

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Do you want to take that from your committee perspective?

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

Sure. From the perspective of the Saskatoon Police Service, we are having conversations in terms of how we will respond in the future, but it's true that until we actually see the legislation and the regulations it's difficult to know exactly what we're going to be faced with. I mentioned in my opening remarks the fear of the unknown and not knowing to a great degree how our calls for service will increase, and so on.

Part of the challenge will be that once the legislation is implemented and we start to track our calls for service, and so on, in the community, we won't be able to react to that until we have a good sense of what we're faced with. We're also engaged with the province at a fairly high level at this point. We're going to have to do more consultation with the province as to what they have in mind in terms of provincial regulations as well.

The Chair :

Your time is up. Now we'll go to Dr. Carrie.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to follow up on my last question. We realize that Canadian youth do use cannabis too much. We're saying we're going to go from one system that the government says isn't working, though statistics may suggest otherwise, but I wonder if you, as police officers, could actually explain the tools in your tool box today. If you pull a youth over who is 17 years old, if you smell marijuana in the car, if you notice that they have marijuana in the car, because it's illegal you don't have to prove that they're impaired.

You don't have to worry about swabbing their cheek to see if it has been consumed. You don't have to worry about a blood test. You have tools in your box to actually address that youth. Perhaps I think the goal would be to put them into a treatment program or talk to their parents. How is it going to be different now for you, pulling over a young person under the new legislation, or theoretical new legislation? Are you going to have the same tools to address that? Is it going to be worse? Is it going to be better? What would you think?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Do you want to take that?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Sure. I think we have the potential, and the CACP has advocated for this and we've been a very clear voice for a long time, about for a ticketing scheme for young offenders and for young people. It will be nice to have the opportunity to provide a ticket, if that exists. That's one thing that would be an extra tool for us, so to speak, if you want to call it a tool.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Does it need to be legalized for that, or could you do it a different way under today's framework with decriminalization or something such as that?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

It really does vary from province to province. I think it's well documented that British Columbia has a far more tolerant approach in policing marijuana. Typically, a lot of times, quite frankly, it's taken away from the youth and that's the end of it. Certainly we want to ensure that youth cannot possess. We want to ensure that we have the authorities under certainly a provincial statute to take away the marijuana from a youth. That is our primary concern. We also think it's important that there be a system, as my colleague stated, in regard to having an opportunity to ticket and perhaps educate.

We've advocated that a monetary fine probably is not the best approach, certainly for first-time offenders, but rather, looking at something such as an online app or an online program where youth have to take a mandatory course and be educated on the dangers to persons under the age of 25. We do need tools in order to effectively deal with it. Currently, some of our systems are just taking it away, and that is not appropriate, because I don't think the lessons are being learned and we continue to see high youth consumption.

Really, what we want to see through an education program, such as we've seen with tobacco and through rigorous campaigns on tobacco, is a drop in youth consumption and consumption overall through these very active campaigns. I think we can do the same if we invest some money and if we invest the time and resources into that.

(0945) Mr. Colin Carrie :

I agree with you, but we'll both maybe agree that none of that is in this bill of the federal government. It's going to be left to the provinces and territories. The next question is for Deputy Commissioner Barnum. I'd like to find out what you'd like to see with regard to stronger security screening on those producing and distributing. We recently had Health Canada.... There was a big recall for pesticides and fungicides. It's interesting, even with the medical marijuana system, it appears that the government is not putting in the resources to properly inspect these facilities.

Moving forward with legalized marijuana and recreational marijuana, the government isn't putting enough money into inspectors and overseeing the facilities today. What would you like to see the federal government do with opening up the market like this?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I'll perhaps share that answer with my colleague, Deputy Chief Carrique. Firstly, I think I mentioned before, it's important to have a layered process. It's not as simple as getting a licence to grow by just having your name on a certificate, having somebody do a criminal record check and saying there's no criminal record, or, it's old, so they can have a licence. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it's important to understand that it needs to be a layered and thorough approach, with background checks.

Again, for what we have in Ontario, I routinely permit our officers to travel around the world to check on individuals who are claiming companies from out of the country to be part of the casino system. They travel around the world to do these background checks, to make sure that what this business is supposed to be in this community, in this country...that it actually is there and they do have the staff who are working there. We do that type of regulation background check.

I think that type of approach is vital to making sure that the money that goes into these facilities to produce a legal product is legitimate and it's going back into the community legitimately.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Do you have confidence, though, that if the government can't deal with the medical system that they would do it with a recreational one?

The Chair :

Your time is up.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Okay, I thought I could get one more question in.

The Chair :

Well you're very good at that. We're going to give you another chance.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Yes, thank you. There are lots of questions. I wish we could have more time with you.

The Chair :

Ms. Sidhu.

Ms. Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being here today. My question is to the OPP. Thank you for serving 13 million people. I did a round table in my riding. I heard very loudly that some people are accessing illegal cannabis that is laced with some dangerous drug. Imagine allowing four homegrown plants in the legal market. Wouldn't it make cannabis use a lot safer, instead of our youth taking laced drugs? Can you comment on that?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I guess if somebody were to grow their own marijuana and use it in their house for personal consumption, then they would have control of the product from the beginning to the end. That would probably be better than reaching out to somebody on the street and getting a product that they don't know. Yes, I would agree that in a perfect-world scenario that would be good. I also would recommend that you be careful about how your home-grow is wired, how it's being ventilated, and who has access to it. Is somebody going to come in and decide they want your four plants instead of leaving them with you?

There are a lot of layers there. On the perfect nirvana where somebody is smoking their own marijuana in the privacy of their own home, there are a lot of layers before you get to that point. I think that's what we're trying to point out here.

Ms. Sonia Sidhu :

Thank you. Could you talk a little about the current landscape of cannabis sales in storefronts otherwise linked to organized crime?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

Currently in Ontario, we believe there are approximately 140 dispensaries throughout the province. As to whether they are directly related to organized crime, we haven't done the investigation in all of those communities. Many of them are in municipal policing communities. We work with our partners to try to understand the landscape. I'll share this answer with my colleague from the organized crime committee as well. I would say there is definitely organized crime involvement, some of which we specifically know about in some of the dispensaries. To give you an exact number, I would say it would probably be 10%.

(0950) Ms. Sonia Sidhu :

You also spoke about how 6,000 officers need training. Our federal government committed $161 million for training front-line officers on how to recognize the signs and symptoms of drug-impaired driving. In the law enforcement capacity across the country, don't you think it will help to control that crime?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

If I got your question, you're saying the money that has been committed will help for the training...?

Ms. Sonia Sidhu :

No. You said that 6,000 police officers need training up front. Our government has committed $161 million for training front-line officers. Don't you think it will help in legalizing when they train the officers more on that?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

I believe the money will help with training our officers, but I also believe there will be more costs involved. Again, you can look at the diversity of the OPP and the geographical challenges we have to train 6,000 officers. It takes a long time to bring somebody in from a community in the far northeast or northwest to a central location to have them trained. It's expensive, and it takes us a long time. We've been rolling out naloxone for over four and a half months now to every one of our officers, and that includes a training regime. It does take a long time.

I don't think we're trying to be unreasonable or saying that it can't be accomplished. We look forward to actually doing it and working alongside, but all we're asking for is the reasonable opportunity to do it in an organized fashion that can be effective.

Ms. Sonia Sidhu :

Thank you. Mr. Serr, you said that youth consumption of cannabis is very much.... Everyone knows that it's a serious problem. To deal with that, we need to educate youth. What kind of education program will be needed? Can you comment on that?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Yes. Certainly, we need an education program that's specific to youth and resonates with youth. I would certainly look to the experts for that as far as a public messaging campaign goes. I think that's part one. Part two is that we have school liaison officers who we believe need to be trained, in addition to the training we've just talked about, in order to work with schools and educators to educate on the dangers of youth consumption and change the perceptions that are currently out there. I think we also have to remember that we have to educate parents, because it starts at home.

We have to see that the parents are understanding the concerns and dangers with regard to youth consumption. For example, we have observed that in Colorado, I believe it was, 22% of youth have obtained marijuana from their parents, which is certainly concerning to us. That education has to extend not just to youth specifically but really to the whole community, so that we can start to change those statistics we see about youth consumption in Canada.

The Chair :

Your time is up. Mr. Davies, you have three minutes.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thank you. I understand and respect that there are different philosophical approaches to drug policy in this country, but I want to press a bit on the general idea of moving to legalization. In terms of alcohol prohibition from the thirties, if we look at what happened then, when it was illegal and prohibited, we had organized crime, illegal stills, machine guns in the streets, and thefts and break-ins and that sort of thing.

As we've moved to legalize that product, which, by the way is a dangerous product—I think we all recognize that alcohol is responsible for a lot of health problems, a lot of death, and a lot of violence—we have moved to a situation now where people can access it legally and you can home-brew your own wine and beer. I dare say that every person in this room has a liquor cabinet of some type at home. Alcohol is in the home. We're not seeing a diversion of alcohol to the black market. We're not seeing people break into houses to steal liquor on any grand scale.

My question is, why would it be any different if we simply add cannabis to that as the intoxicant that people choose? I recognize that there would be a transition period, but over time wouldn't we expect to see a very similar social rollout with cannabis? What's the difference between cannabis and alcohol and the way society has dealt with them?

(0955) D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

It's interesting when we talk about pre-prohibition, because we do talk about statistics and evidence, and I don't know what evidence or statistics we have for the pre-prohibition of alcohol. It would be very interesting to learn what the crime rates were back them. What we do know is that impaired driving by way of alcohol is the number one criminal cause of death in this country. If we are to expect that the use of cannabis may go up, that causes us great concern. It puts our communities at peril if there is even one more incident of impaired driving impaired by drug, which we know happens today.

It is unknown what the combination is when you combine drugs and alcohol. We have heard all sorts of statistics from our neighbours south of the border that indicate that it has a great impact. There is up to a 28% increase in the amount of intoxication. That creates a great danger behind the wheel. You are correct that we're not seeing as many residential break-and-enters for alcohol, but I can tell you that back 10 to 15 years ago, a primary reason for young people to break into places was to get alcohol. We all know that youth take alcohol from parents' liquor cabinets.

So you're right, we really do need to concentrate on the education and the awareness of our youth, our parents, our educators, and our health care practitioners, so that we can mitigate the impact of legalizing cannabis and keep our youth as safe as possible.

The Chair :

We're ahead of schedule, so if there's unanimous consent, we'll go for another round of four- or five-minute questions. I know Dr. Carrie is anxious to have a few more questions. I want to compliment the panel. You give the most concise answers of any panel we've ever had, so we're ahead of schedule, partly because of that. We're going to start off the five-minute questions with Mr. Oliver.

Mr. John Oliver (Oakville, Lib.) :

Thank you very much. There was a suggestion that you are being rushed by the committee. If our normal committee meeting was on a day, we would have two hours of questioning and testimony, and that's exactly what's unfolding here. Thank you very much for your participation in this. I thought I heard from one of your testimonies that there was a concern that organized crime had infiltrated the medical marijuana production facilities. My understanding is that the RCMP does quite extensive background screening for any of the applications for licensed marijuana producers for the medical system.

They go back over 20 years. They look into the owners' associations, current and past. They look at the criminal intelligence that they've gathered around those applications. It includes looking at the spouse's and family members' associations over 20 years. The example I had is that if your brother-in-law owned a bar that was frequented by the Hells Angels, you could be denied a medical licence to be a producer. I guess I'm a bit concerned by that comment you made. Do you feel the RCMP isn't doing their job adequately? Did I misunderstand your testimony? Could you elaborate on that for me, please?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

The licensed producers we know are vetted strongly by the—

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Point of order, Mr. Chair. We have a guest here, Parliamentary Secretary Blair. I respect our guest very much, but throughout these meetings he's actually been leaning over, having conversations with our witnesses. It's totally inappropriate. I realize these are former colleagues of his. As I said, I do respect him. I respect the fact that he has this file as his responsibility, but if he's going to be at this committee table, he needs to stop leaning over and interfering with our witnesses. I don't know what he's saying to them, but this is at least the second time I've seen him do that, so on a point of order, Mr. Chair, I'd like you to address this right now.

The Chair :

As a member of Parliament, he is entitled to be here. He's entitled to be at the table.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

And, what is he doing?

The Chair :

Well, he's at the table, and I would ask if maybe he would offer a thought on this.

Mr. Bill Blair (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I accept the concern from the honourable member, and I'll refrain from any further conversation.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

To address your question, we are aware that the RCMP does fairly rigorous inspections or checks on licensed producers. One of our main concerns with the medical regime under the MMAR is the designated and personal production licences, which do not have near the same level of rigour. We do know that organized crime, without any doubt, is involved in both of those uses. That is our primary concern and why we're asking—

(1000) Mr. John Oliver :

These are individuals who are given a permit to grow their own—

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Correct.

Mr. John Oliver :

—marijuana for medical purposes, and you have a concern. Just to be very clear, the licensed producers go through quite rigorous screening. I wanted to be clear on that.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Yes.

Mr. John Oliver :

Is this legislation better than the status quo, particularly in mitigating, or at least reducing some of the access that organized crime would have to this work? Right now, it is a 100% illegal supply. It's all black market, other than the medical marijuana. I think you mentioned this, but could you say it again? Do you see any reduction in the access of organized crime to some of this market with this legislation?

D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

There's definitely an opportunity here to impact the organized crime element related to cannabis. As we mentioned, it's a $9-billion industry. If the cannabis act is successful and if it does result in a decrease of profit in the black market for organized crime, what we need to do as law enforcement officials is to turn our minds to where this decrease in profit.... Where do they turn their attention? Do they turn their attention to other illicit drugs that present greater dangers to our community, and make them more available to our youth?

Mr. John Oliver :

Sure, they're going to be there. There is no question.

D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

That is something that is a policing profession—

Mr. John Oliver :

I believe the federal government has just made an infusion of financial support to help with criminal investigations. Is that correct?

D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

We did hear the announcement. We acknowledge that the financial announcement is going to assist with our efforts. It will be, as I stated, incumbent on us to make sure that we are thinking one step ahead of organized crime. If we do reduce this market for them, where do they turn their attention to recover those profits?

Mr. John Oliver :

I understand. On your capacity to be prepared for this legislation, I think we need to distinguish pretty clearly what is federal, and what is provincial, territorial, and municipal in this. At the federal level, it's pretty clear right now. If you're under the age of 18 and you're holding less than five grams, there's no criminal charge. If you're over the age of 18 and you're holding under 30 grams, there's no criminal charge. The residential growing rules are clear as well. At a federal level, in terms of criminal charges, it's pretty clear, is it not?

It's really at the provincial and territorial level, in terms of how the ticketing and provincial applications will apply that the uncertainly arises for you. Assuming the bill is passed and goes through the legislature, you could prepare for the federal law today, could you not?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Assuming that there are no changes, there is a fair bit of clarity in this act that we can certainly rely on. That being said, the process for ticketing is yet to be determined. How that process will be—

Mr. John Oliver :

Which is provincial, right?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

There's also the federal...or the implications for a person who has between 30 and 50 grams. We still need to work with the Department of Justice and Health Canada on the application of the different laws that would fall under this act. We have some ideas, but we certainly can't develop a full and robust training package until we really have the full picture of how this will roll out.

The Chair :

The time is up. Okay, Ms. Gladu. Are you going to share your time?

Ms. Marilyn Gladu :

I'm going to share my time with Mr. Carrie.

The Chair :

Five minutes goes very fast.

Ms. Marilyn Gladu :

I know. Is it any problem to you that the government, federally, has sort of downloaded most of this to the provinces to let them all figure out their own rules? You may have 13 different systems across the country. I would ask Mr. Serr.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

We certainly have advocated that the more uniformity we can have across the country, the more it would be advantageous for us, and not only from a training perspective. Certainly, the provinces are deciding on age. This could be a complication. Some provinces having a younger age restriction could create cannabis tourism, potentially. We would like to see that there's more of a national scope to this.

Ms. Marilyn Gladu :

Very good. One of the unintended consequences, or things that I found disturbing from Colorado was that in suicides among adolescents of 10 to 19 years of age, 16% of them were found to have marijuana in their systems. Do you have any data on what the situation is in Canada, in terms of suicide, which is an epidemic among our young people? How many of them contain marijuana at death?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

No, we don't have any specific information regarding youth suicides and the finding of THC in their systems.

(1005) Ms. Marilyn Gladu :

Okay. I will turn it over to Mr. Carrie.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Thank you very much. I just wanted to put something on the record regarding this narrative about alcohol prohibition and marijuana prohibition. The CMA was here yesterday. They said it's not the same, especially for youth and especially for brain development. My uncle, who's a police officer, asked me why we would want to legalize another substance that's going to give us problems just because we've legalized one substance, which you have rightly said is the number one cause of death in driving.

I think the status quo today is that if you pull someone over, you can take them off the road, and immediately, you can pull them off the road. Public safety is maintained. You don't need to do these swabs. You don't need to do the blood tests. You don't have to prove in court that they've been impaired. My question is about the officers on the ground who have to take on this duty now. I was wondering if you could explain the difference between an officer who is trained in the field of sobriety testing to detect drug impairment, and a drug recognition evaluator, whom I believe is now recognized as an expert.

Mr. John Oliver :

Mr. Chair, could I raise a point of order?

The Chair :

Yes.

Mr. John Oliver :

Sorry to interrupt. Impaired driving is a very important topic. It's a concern for all Canadians that we have proper control of it, but we're dealing with Bill C-45 . At some point in time, in the future, we're going to have to do a clause-by-clause review of Bill C-45, which does not deal at all with impaired driving. Bill C-46 deals with all of those kinds of questions, concerns, and the training. The justice committee is dealing with that.

I'm concerned that we're taking very important time away from being able to question these witnesses about Bill C-45 by directing it to Bill C-46, which is another committee's job and another bill. I don't know whether it's a point of order, Dr. Carrie, but at the end of the day we have to do a clause-by-clause review of Bill C-45 , and it's silent on this topic.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

I really appreciate your bringing up that comment because, as a health committee, one of the things we have to address is the health and safety of Canadians. For public safety concerns, I believe it's really important that we get the opinions of the people on the ground, when they're the ones responsible for the health and safety of Canadians on the road. We have good evidence to suggest that there's one substance out there. We're talking about another substance to get their opinion on that, and I think it does fall within the scope of this study. Thanks. I appreciate your letting me comment on that.

Mr. Don Davies :

Briefly, to the point of order, I've struggled with the same concept that there's a separate piece of legislation dealing with the impaired driver regime, but in fairness to Dr. Carrie and all members of the committee, I believe it's companion legislation that's necessitated by this legislation. We probably wouldn't be talking about the need to amend the Criminal Code to deal with impaired driving if we were not legalizing marijuana. I wouldn't want any member of this committee to be restricted from talking about that, if they wish.

I will be limiting myself to Bill C-45 as much as possible, but I do want to speak in favour of Dr. Carrie's ability to venture into that if he wants, particularly from a health point of view.

The Chair :

This is a health committee, but we are going back and forth between justice and health issues all the way through this panel. Let's try to focus on the health issues, and we'll just continue on. Everyone has a point here, but we are dealing with justice issues. Just look at the uniforms here. Even though it's a health committee, they are interrelated.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

There is a definite science, Mr. Chair, when we're talking about an ordinary officer who's trained in sobriety. I think all officers do get training in that, but we have drug recognition experts who we've heard are going to be absolutely necessary. If the government is going to roll this out, these experts have to be on the ground. They have to be prepared. The courts are accepting only drug recognition experts as experts in court, and now with it about to be a legal substance, there is a science behind this. There are absolutely health issues behind this, and I want to hear from our guys on the ground.

They have very few of these experts available to them today. The Prime Minister has been very adamant that this is a promise he's going to keep, and in 290 days. I want to make sure the health and safety of Canadians is addressed. These people are going to be absolutely necessary. The cost of this is also an important thing for this committee to address, because my understanding is that it could be up to $20,000 per officer to get this training. I want to hear from the guys on the ground.

The Chair :

Thank you for your testimony. Go ahead.

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

The International Association of Chiefs of Police website lists the process for certification for DRE training. Everyone who's involved in the program has to first take the standardized field sobriety training before they attend the DRE program. Then the program itself consists of three phases. The first phase is a two-day preschool. The second phase is a seven-day classroom program with a comprehensive exam following that. Then between 60 and 90 days following phase two, the candidates attend a program in the U.S. where they have to evaluate subjects who are suspected of being impaired by drugs.

My understanding is that they must participate in at least 12 evaluations successfully in order to then get the certification.

(1010) Mr. Colin Carrie :

What percentage passes, and how long does that whole process take for one officer to be trained?

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

I don't have an answer to that question.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

My understanding is that not every officer does pass this. This is a very specific training program, and my concern is that, if the government does roll this out, those officers will not be on the ground and won't have the resources to properly look after the health and safety of Canadians.

The Chair :

You still have time.

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Okay. Maybe for Saskatchewan, do you have an opinion on the best way to distribute marijuana once it is legalized? What model would be easier for police to monitor?

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

Specifically, you are asking in reference to which models?

Mr. Colin Carrie :

Ontario has come up with a model. I think it's focusing on the LCBO type of model. We've seen, I think, a very good model where, for medical marijuana anyway, there's a secure mail. I don't know, and maybe your colleagues could comment on this, but my understanding is that there hasn't been a lot of diversion from secure mail. There are a lot of different models out there, and again, because of the hodgepodge that provinces are going to be faced with, one province can do it differently from another. We've seen Ontario come out. Of course, it doesn't want to come here and be questioned on it.

For police, what's the best system of distribution that will allow you to monitor and keep the safety of Canadians in mind?

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

I think the best system would be one that allows us to differentiate between illicit and licit marijuana. I can't tell you exactly what that system would look like because I don't know enough about that, but certainly a system that would allow us to enforce the legislation and the regulations as well as we can.

The Chair :

Now your time is up. We go now to Mr. Davies.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thanks. Mr. Chatterbok, you mentioned, I think, if I had your testimony correct, that you felt that once Bill C-45 comes into place, investigations will increase. Can you elaborate on that? How do you think investigations are going to increase under this bill?

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

I suspect that once the legislation is in place, especially the way the legislation is worded now, we're going to see an increase in complaints with respect to home-grows, specifically. As I also mentioned in opening remarks, we anticipate that we will also see increased calls for service, whether it's with respect to street robberies, break and enters, or so on, but certainly around the grow operations themselves.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thank you. Chief Barnum, I think you mentioned the geographical challenges. The OPP of course has the entire province of Ontario. Can you tell us a bit about the rural challenges you see that this legislation may be presenting from an enforcement point of view, provincially?

D/Commr Rick Barnum :

From an Ontario perspective, we have 164 detachments spread across the province. Some of those detachments we access by airplane only. Members there will have to be trained as well, because it's important to recognize that our officers on Monday morning may report to their detachment, no matter where it is, and Monday afternoon may be working at an event somewhere in the province of Ontario. It's not as if we can categorize with certainly who gets training here and there; it has to be uniform throughout the province.

That's a challenge for us as an organization all the time, and one that we routinely deal with, but we deal with it through specifically organized training sessions and an academy that looks after that. That would be one of our challenges. As far as the enforcement perspective goes, again, it's important to recognize that we're in 373 communities in the province of Ontario. Some of those communities have street lights and some of them don't. Again, we're in 54 court jurisdictions. That's every court jurisdiction that exists in the province of Ontario.

The OPP has a responsibility to provide evidence and to be in those court jurisdictions. Uniformity is absolutely key for our organization, as my colleague mentioned earlier. We don't want to be on the front page for making bad decisions and doing bad police work. Training is a cornerstone to making sure we do it properly. We're well positioned to deliver the training, once we know what it is, and we're well positioned to meet deadlines. We can do that and we can move resources to make sure that happens. Those would be our key concerns around that issue.

(1015) Mr. Don Davies :

Thank you. Chief Serr, I'll end with you, if I can. In a March 2017 interview on Canada's legalization, Mario Harel, the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, said:

We need about 2,000 drug-recognizance experts to do the job properly.... We have about 600 right now.

We need more training and it’s going to be a long process. We have to realize that we won’t have enough police officers trained by next year.

I have two quick questions. Do you concur with that? Second, it was, I think, Chief Chatterbok who talked about maybe setting up a Canadian training capacity instead of having to send Canadian officers to the States. Can you elaborate a bit on who will do that, where the money would come from, and whether that's possible?

D/Chief Mike Serr :

As a quick answer to your questions, I do concur with Chief Harel. As for 2,000, that's a very good estimate on his part. We don't know what that exact number will be. One of our challenges is that police officers are trained and then they're also moved to different assignments, which poses an ongoing continuous challenge in training. We need a significant increase in drug recognition experts, for sure. Part two of your question, I'm sorry....

Mr. Don Davies :

It was on Canadian training.

D/Chief Mike Serr :

Our concern right now is that the capacity for that availability, that training, is through the U.S. It is expensive, and currently the U.S. police agencies have a vested interest in training their members in that, which takes priority in many cases. We need a made-for-Canadian policing solution to this. We need to bring that training here, if possible, if we're going to train that many officers as quickly as possible.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thank you.

The Chair :

Mr. Ayoub, you have five minutes.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Ramez Ayoub :

I would like your opinion on something we talked about a little earlier. Mr. Carrique, you said that there is some movement inside organized crime. If we were to draw a pie chart representing the financial resources of organized crime, for which cannabis is a source of revenue, if we reduced the part available to organized crime, could we logically loosen its hold and hurt it financially? In your opinion, can paradigms be changed as a result of that hypothesis? You said that it will sort of shift the problem. But we have to find a solution to the problems we know.

If we could see into the future, it would be good, of course. Do you have an idea where the movement would start from? I would like to hear your opinion.

[ English ]

D/Chief Thomas Carrique :

You're absolutely right, sir, in that we do not avoid addressing a problem because it will shift the problem. We have to utilize systems thinking in a strategic approach to this. We just need to look at the drug usage across Canada right now.

One of the great concerns that we have is obviously the use of opiates and specifically fentanyl so, as a policing profession, a lot of our efforts and attention are turned towards the use of fentanyl, and we will continue to concentrate on the distribution of fentanyl and ensure that we are spending a significant amount of time, energy, and resources in mitigating any interest that organized crime may have in expanding into that space. We know that cocaine is a very lucrative, illicit commodity for organized crime, and that's another one that takes up a lot of our interest, a lot of our time.

It's transnational as well, so there will be no shortage of illicit drugs for us to spend our time and attention on.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Ramez Ayoub :

I have often heard comments from people in the streets. I am not talking about police officers, but about students, high schoolers and kids going to CEGEPs in Quebec. They tell us that they can get cannabis much more easily than cigarettes or even alcohol. Those are products that are already controlled, and have well-established standards. How do we react? Can we identify the problem for youth, the problem that gives rise to the bill that we are working on and that we have to implement in order to protect our youth?

That is where we want to do the most harm to organized crime, by depriving it of its means and its revenue as we protect our young people. What do you think about our young people telling us that it is easier for them to get cannabis than alcohol and cigarettes?

(1020) [ English ]

D/Chief Mike Serr :

We don't disagree that youth right now have easy access to marijuana, and that's certainly a challenge for us in law enforcement. We do believe that youth, even under a regulated model like with alcohol, will still be able to access marijuana. We're not naive to that, and that's why we believe it's so important to have a highly regulated system. It does makes it more challenging for our organized crime investigators to really put some pressure on organized crime to dissuade them from selling to youth. Educating parents as well will be critically important.

Like I said, as we see Colorado, I believe it's 48% of youth have received marijuana from somebody who had purchased it legally. Again, that's why we're advocating for packaging and that the packaging describe the very strict enforcement action that can be taken on someone who essentially bootlegs marijuana. That is critically important. Youth will always be able to access it at some point. We think, if there are home-grows, it gives them more opportunity to access it, so anything we can do to restrict and limit their opportunities will be helpful, but it's not going to be enough alone.

We certainly need education like we have with tobacco in order to disrupt youth use.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Ramez Ayoub :

One of the things I appreciate enormously about this current debate on the legalization of cannabis is that we are actually talking about it. We are now admitting that there is a problem and that it is with us every day. Cannabis can be obtained on the street with disturbing ease, though it is currently illegal. We were not talking about that beforehand. But the problem still existed. We were not dealing with the problems affecting young people. Education is extremely important. Parents really have a role to play, whether it is about alcohol, cigarettes or, in the future, cannabis.

I find it very interesting to be able to be brought up to date on education and regulation. Your comments are very much in tune with municipalities and community organizations. Services are being provided directly to Canadians and to schools. It is important to continue those efforts. I feel that that is the direction we are taking in terms of cannabis. The ability to be a leader in the field does Canada honour. Our young people are the main users of this drug. If we were not doing this exercise, we would be missing the opportunity to act.

I am very happy that you are dealing with these issues positively and that you are considering the possibility of eventually addressing the problem. I congratulate you for that. We will certainly be able to work together. Your comments are really being considered. Thank you. I have no further questions.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Thanks very much. That winds up our session. On behalf of the committee, I just want to say that we have some of the best expertise in the country come to this committee, and this panel is among the best. We really appreciate your contribution. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you all. You've done a great job of communicating your perspective and helping us understand the policing point of view. Before I say good-bye, I want to ask a question.

About an hour and a half ago, Deputy Chief Chatterbok said in his opening remarks that the amount of time our front-line officers have available to conduct proactive activities is 29%. Can you help the committee understand what the other 71% of a police officer's time is taken up with?

D/Chief Mark Chatterbok :

Certainly. The majority of the time would be responding to calls for service, but there's also administrative time spent on top of that, which includes preparation of occurrence reports, filling out paperwork, phoning witnesses. There's a whole host of things that would fall into the administrative part of the duties.

(1025) The Chair :

Thanks very much again. It has been a pleasure. We're going to suspend now until 10:45.

(1025) (1045) The Chair :

It being 10:45, I call our meeting back to order. This is meeting number 65 of the Standing Committee on Health, studying Bill C-45 . I'd like to welcome our panel today, and we're looking forward to hearing from you. As individuals we have Neil Boyd, professor of criminology, Simon Fraser University. We have Christian Leuprecht, from the department of political science, Royal Military College, by video conference from Australia. I didn't realize the Royal Military College of Canada was in Australia, but that's fine with me.

From the Barreau du Québec we have Paul-Matthieu Grondin, president of the Quebec bar; Luc Hervé Thibaudeau, president of the consumer protection committee; and Pascal Levesque, president of the criminal law committee. Also, from the Criminal Lawyers' Association, we have Anne London-Weinstein, former director. I want to thank you all for coming, and we're looking forward to your contribution to our committee. Each of the individuals will have a 10-minute opening statement, then the Barreau du Québec will have 10 minutes, and the Criminal Lawyers' Association will also have 10 minutes. We'll start with Mr.

Boyd, and after everyone makes their presentation of 10 minutes, we'll have questions.

Professor Neil Boyd (Professor of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual) :

Thanks very much. It's an honour and a privilege to be here this morning to address the committee. I've provided the committee with a brief and I'd like to make a few additional comments and focus as well on a few points within that brief. First, I have to say that I applaud the approach taken by the government, that of legalization of cannabis. Regulation in the interest of public health is critical. I think it's an approach that will increase our knowledge of both the harms and benefits of the use of cannabis.

I'd like to echo some of the points made yesterday by Mark Ware in relation to how much we don't know and need to know, and the extent to which the data appear at times to flow in both directions. One of the great benefits of legalization is that we will be much better able to answer those kinds of questions. I think it's also important to recognize that in many respects this is a human rights issue. Marijuana was criminalized in 1923 with the simple declaration in the House of Commons that there was a new drug in the schedule.

There was no knowledge of the drug at that time, and it is now clear that, for most users in most circumstances, alcohol and tobacco are more toxic and more disabling with much greater morbidity. We must always remember that we're speaking here of the formidable force of criminal law, and adults who use this drug do not deserve the application of the criminal sanction, nor do children or minors who use this drug. I'd add that the Narcotic Control Act passed in 1961 contained the most severe penalties for cannabis possession and distribution after 50 years of virtually no charges in relation to the drug.

Between 1908 and 1961, we had approximately one thousand convictions for all drugs combined. In 1961 we passed the Narcotic Control Act after a lengthy debate about whether capital punishment would be appropriate for people who trafficked in narcotics—cannabis was one of those—and yet by 1967, more than a thousand Canadians were convicted of simple possession of cannabis alone. More than half of them went to jail. It was a period that has been described as the “get tough” period in response to cannabis, but by 1975, there were 40,000 convictions annually and jail was no longer a practical option.

My comments with respect to minimizing the harms to youth are, yes, I think the age of 18, or probably in most provinces more appropriately 19, seems reasonable, similar to that for the purchase of alcohol. I think we have to keep in mind that this is