Trudeau’s pot legalization a headache for Quebec
Logistics are complicated, but province fears the social costs
The province will table its own legislation in response to Ottawa’s plans to legalize recreational marijuana and is forming a common front with Ontario to draft an action plan to deal with the expected sweeping negative social consequences.
Emerging from a meeting of cabinet where the federal government’s plan was analyzed at length, Public Health and Youth Protection Minister Lucie Charlebois said Quebec is moving rapidly to respond to deepening concerns — inside government and out — about the increased availability of pot.
Quebec can’t stop Ottawa from acting — the Trudeau government is to table a bill Thursday — but it does hold an ace: the province has a say in how the law is applied and how soon, Charlebois told reporters.
The Trudeau government is talking about having the whole process wrapped up by July 2018.
“It seems pretty quick to us,” Charlebois said one day after the premier said he fears Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election pot promise will become a major burden to the provinces.
“It’s not been adopted yet,” she said. “We are going to work on this with our neighbours. Our duty is to look after the health of the population. It’s all well and good to legalize but, after that, where do we sell this, how do we sell this, to whom, the sites? We have to look at all this.
“Cannabis is not an everyday substance, but we managed over the years to create a sound framework around the sales of alcohol so I don’t see how we couldn’t arrive at the same thing.
“That said, we have work to do and we can’t count on a miracle to get it done.”
Behind the scenes, however, senior mandarins are scrambling, not quite sure what Ottawa’s intentions are.
A special cabinet committee to prepare for what’s ahead has now been expanded to include 15 ministers including the ministers of health, education, public security and finance, Charlebois said.
That’s because with one conservative estimate indicating 21 per cent of the marijuana about to become available will be consumed in Quebec (39 per cent in Ontario), all those networks will be potentially overloaded with problems and additional costs.
“My concern is that we do not increase access (to marijuana),” Education Minister Sébastien Proulx said arriving for question period. “It needs to be controlled to better restrict it.”
Inside the bureaucracy, there are concerns there is not even an accurate detector for police to measure a motorist’s marijuana levels. Others fear if the government gets into the pot business it could be on the hook for legal challenges associated with the health perils of pot in much the same way tobacco firms have been pursued by smokers.
And officials dismissed early speculation that marijuana could eventually represent as much excise tax revenue as tobacco does to the treasury.
“If someone thinks this will become a cash cow, they’re dead wrong,” one senior official told the Montreal Gazette referring to the social costs — particularly involving youth — of allowing more pot on the streets.
On Tuesday, the C.D. Howe Institute released a study saying the legalized sale of marijuana could yield additional combined federal and provincial revenues of $675 million in 2018. The institute estimates 4.6 million Quebecers will consume 655 metric tons of marijuana in 2018.
On the other hand, if governments get too greedy, consumers will go to the black market as they do for cigarettes. For the record, in 2012, 1.8 per cent of Quebecers were daily users of marijuana, which matches the Canadian average. But one prominent Quebec Liberal poured cold water on one key federal Liberal argument to the effect liberalizing marijuana will take organized crime down a notch.
“Organized crime is like bad weeds,” said Marguerite-Bourgeoys MNA Robert Poëti, himself a former Sûreté du Québec police officer with 28 years on the force. “You can pull them out, they will grow back. You can pull them out again, they’ll grow back again.”
He said organized crime is already preparing alternatives for the arrival of legal marijuana to ensure it maintains its share of the market.
But the social costs — which Quebec feels Ottawa is oblivious to — are the real concern. On Thursday, all the province’s political leaders expressed serious reservations on the use of marijuana.
“As a parent and a former minister of education, I witnessed so many youths get burned by pot, consumers transformed into persons with mental illness like schizophrenia,” said Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault.
On Wednesday — highlighting evidence of the risks to young developing brains — the Canadian Psychiatric Association urged governments to outlaw sales to youth under 21 and to restrict the potency of the product.
For his part, Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée called for provincewide roving legislature hearings to study the pros and cons of the legalization of marijuana.
He said what Ottawa has done amounts to “confiscating ” a debate that Quebec should be allowed to have on its own, much as it did with medically assisted deaths.
The hearings would listen to everyone from the public to experts.
“The premier was not elected in 2014 with a promise to distribute marijuana,” Lisée said in the house saying Quebec has to consult the people.
While not ruling anything out, Premier Philippe Couillard said the reality is that the legalization is coming and Quebec has to prepare.
“It’s clear the easy part in all this is tabling the legislation (in Ottawa),” Couillard said. “The difficult, complicated part, the one which will wake up the debate here, is the framework to make it work.”
Couillard said while he personally favours the concept of legalization, the “regrettable” part is that the provinces and territories were not brought into the mix and now are stuck with the consequences.
He suggested Ottawa’s decision will mean the province will have to adopt other legislation to apply the rules and that won’t happen in vacuum. It’s at that stage experts and Quebec society would have their say.
Charlebois indicated a bill will have to be presented in the National Assembly given the number of Quebec laws affected by the federal plan.
“Our goal is not to trivialize (the issue) but create a framework,” Couillard said.
“We are not here to moralize youth and other parts of society, but we will equip out families in the coming days to talk to their children (about marijuana).
“We do not intend to truncate the debate or impede it. I don’t know why he (Lisée) is letting that impression float. It’s completely false.”