It’s game on for Trudeau and his legal pot plan
On Oct. 17, Canada will become the only industrialized nation on earth to regulate and sell marijuana for recreational use.
While regions of other countries have legal cannabis, the only other fully legalized nation is tiny Uruguay in South America, which has a total economic output slightly higher than Saskatchewan.
With a rushed legislative agenda and policy framework, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals leave many unanswered questions. They confidently predict a “transformative shift, leaving behind a failed model of prohibition which made organized crime rich and left our young people vulnerable.”
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-raybould promises to “protect youth from the health and safety risk of cannabis and keep criminals from profiting from its production, distribution and sale.”
For Trudeau, it’s now game on. The political debates are over and he’ll be judged on these two criteria: keeping kids away from pot and squeezing criminals.
Normalizing an activity by legalizing it seems an odd way to send someone the message that they shouldn’t be doing that activity. Government focus groups with teens found that younger people, 13- to 15-year-olds, were the most skeptical that legalizing marijuana will limit its accessibility.
Similarly, police agencies have said there’s already significant organized crime involvement in legal medical marijuana.
Combine this with retail pot that will be priced several dollars a gram higher than existing black-market rates, and it will be interesting to watch the Canadian experiment.
While the entire marijuana debate had a “make it up as we go” feel, Canadians did see a promising development in our politics as the cannabis legislation passed the House of Commons and Senate.
Just as it had during an earlier transportation bill, the Senate extensively studied the cannabis bill and made a series of often thoughtful amendments. Traditionally, the Senate, whose 105 occupants are appointed by the prime minister of the day, is divided between Liberals and Conservatives and tends to follow party lines. There are no NDP senators because that party disagrees with the Senate.
But there is a different feel to today’s Senate. It’s now divided into various groups. The largest faction — numbering 45 — call themselves the “Independent Senators Group,” many being newly appointed, quite left wing and loyal to Trudeau.
In recent months, this less predictable Senate has provided valuable “sober second thought” as Canada’s creators had envisioned. But, no matter how thorough their review, senators know their limitations.
They are appointed, not elected. And ultimately, they should and do yield to the democratically elected House of Commons.
Regina’s public school board, succumbing to “presentism,” scrapped the name of Davin School, named 90 years ago for Nicholas Flood Davin, pioneer, lawyer, journalist and founder of what became the Leader-post newspaper.
In 1879, while a member of Parliament, Davin studied U.S. native industrial training schools and authored a report that set the foundation for Indian residential schools in Canada, which years after his death caused great hardship to generations of Indigenous families.
Presentism interprets, judges and even rewrites history, based on today’s values and standards. Only one school trustee argued against this revision.
Social justice activists may now wish to turn their energy to former premier Tommy Douglas, who was a strong proponent and supporter of sterilizing mentally challenged people, calling them “subnormal.” He also famously described homosexuality as “a mental disorder.”
Or — unlike a courtesy not afforded Davin — we could judge Douglas and others, based on the context of their times, and learn from the past.