‘Keep our great country safe from all the weed’

• With the Liberal cannabis legalization bill now being debated in the Senate, the Conservative Party’s health critic used poetry Friday to ask for sober second thought.

Marilyn Gladu implored the upper chamber to “keep our great country safe from all the weed” Friday after the Senate’s first debate on Bill C- 45, a federal framework for legal marijuana, got underway Thursday.

The House of Commons passed the federal bill Monday. It must get through an unpredictable Senate before it can become law. So far, eight provinces and territories have unveiled plans ahead of the government’s July 1, 2018 deadline for Canadians to access legal pot.

Gladu laid out her party’s concerns in verse Friday:

I want to protest an ill- thought out bill that is passing through Parliament here on the Hill.

The bill that is bad is called C-45. It has so many flaws it just should not survive.

The Grits will allow four pot plants in each dwelling, regardless of how bad each place will be smelling.

With mould, ventilation as issues unplanned, this bill will not keep pot from our children’s hands.

There are more new infractions within this new rule that our courts will be flooded, as will every school.

With drug impaired driving and challenges there, the doubling of traffic deaths and Liberals do not care.

The provinces and the police in every town have all asked the Liberals to slow this bill down.

With nearly 200 more days left ’ til the day, nobody but our party stands in the way.

We hope that the Senate will do its true deed, and keep our great country safe from all the weed.

Despite issues raised by his caucus and his own distaste for the bill, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has acknowledged it would be “very difficult” for a future Tory government to undo any legalization.