Senate OKs marijuana bill as Tories drop threat to block it

Despite early reluctance, Senate backs bill to legalize recreational marijuana.

OTTAWA • The Senate has given approval in principle to the Trudeau government’s bill to legalize recreational marijuana.

Bill C- 45 passed at second reading Thursday evening by a vote of 44-29.

The approval came after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminded the senators that his government was elected on a promise to legalize recreational marijuana.

That was seen as a subtle warning they should not attempt to thwart the will of Canadians or the government they elected.

The uncertainty was triggered by Conservative senators, who were hoping to deliver a double- barrelled embarrassment to Trudeau: upending one of his signature election promises, while demonstrating the folly of his efforts to reform the Senate into a less partisan, more independent chamber.

Earlier, Trudeau said the criminal cannabis regime has not protected Canadian children, who are among the highest under- age users of marijuana in developed countries, and has put up to $ 7 billion every year in the pockets of organized crime.

“The current system does not work … This is not something that Canadians want to see continued.”

Trudeau had said he expected the unelected Senate to scrutinize and suggest improvements to bills passed by the House of Commons.

“It is very clear that this bill responds first to an electoral promise that we made very clearly during the election campaign and for which Canadians voted,” he said in New Brunswick.

Ordinarily, a second reading vote is not a big hurdle and is dispensed with on the basis of a quick voice vote — after which the bill is sent to committee for closer scrutiny, witness testimony and any proposed amendments before returning to the Senate.

But in the case of Bill C-45, the 33 Conservative senators had vowed to vote en masse against it at second reading.

The Conser vatives no longer dominate the 105-seat upper house but they were said to be hoping to take advantage of a large number of absent independent senators, who were travelling on Senate committee business, combined with a handful of independents who may oppose the bill, to defeat it.

On Wednesday, the leadership of the independent senators group scrambled to avoid that outcome, sending a memo urging all of its ab- sent members to return to Ottawa in time for the vote.

“Our sense is that ( Conservatives) are willing to take the risk of having the bill defeated at second reading, and — in that event — to blame independent senators for failing to ensure its passage,” senators Yuen Pau Woo and Raymonde SaintGermain said in the memo.

Woo said independent senators understand their job is “not willy nilly to defeat government legislation but to provide careful scrutiny, including from time to time, amending bills, maybe defeating on the rare occasion. But we don’t do this as a matter of course, certainly not on second reading.”

The prospect of the bill being defeated before it’s scrutinized or amendments can be proposed “strikes me as somewhat horrific,” he said.