The legalization of cannabis will not take place in July, say senators

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Boris Proulx

Tuesday, 6 February 2018 15:48

UPDATE
Tuesday, 6 February 2018 15:48

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OTTAWA | senators little doubt that the first joints recreational can be legally smoked in July, due to lack of time to study properly the bill.

“We have a job to do as parliamentarians, and we just start. This is not realistic at all to think that you can finish the work by July 1,” said, Tuesday, the conservative senator Leo Housakos.

Since it is now up to the senators to give their approval to the draft law of the Trudeau government on the legalization of cannabis, three ministers, influential had to answer their questions, on Tuesday.

It is of ministers Judy Wilson-Raybould (Justice), Ginette Petitpas Taylor (Health) and Ralph Goodale (public Safety), as the parliamentary secretary to Bill Blair.

In his speech, the minister Petitpas Taylor spoke of a necessary delay of 8 to 10 weeks after the adoption of the draft law for the followers of cannabis can take their first puffs of legal herb. It is particularly the question of leave time to the companies of cannabis to adjust to the new rules.

This means that the senators will have to finish consideration of the bill in a little less than three months, to may 1, at the maximum, in order to respect the timetable of the legalization scheduled for July.

“It was already more or less realistic [to complete] for the 1st July. It is even less realistic for the 1st of may,” responded senator Claude Carignan.

His colleagues in the senate conservatives Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu and Leo Housakos also indicated that it would be “impossible” for them to analyze the project of legalization in so little time.

They have been contradicted by the senators independent, Chantal Petitclerc, and André Pratte.

“I do not set a specific date. It is necessary that one has the time to study the bills, and I’m convinced that we will have time before the summer […] we will not begin to calculate the weeks”, has qualified the last.

Among the 105 members of the Senate, 39 of which are part of a group of independents, 33 are conservative, 12 are liberal and 7 are non-affiliated.