Cannabis bill tabled

Finance Minister Heath MacDonald tables legislation needed for marijuana legalization

P.E.I. moved a step closer to marijuana legalization Tuesday with the government tabling the legislation needed to get ready for it.

Finance Minister Heath MacDonald said legalizing cannabis is a federal initiative, and the province is dealing with it the best it can.

“I’m a firm believer in regulating this and (doing so) prior to it being normalized. I think that’s really important and that’s key for all of us,” he said.

The Act to Respond to the Legalization of Cannabis deals with several pieces of legislation, including amendments to the Highway Traffic Act needed to deal with drug-impaired drivers. Some of those changes involve saliva testing devices that have yet to see federal government approval.

MacDonald said the federal government has indicated it will have a screening device ready prior to passing its legislation.

“We need to ensure that we’ve got everything that we require in place prior to that legislation being approved in the House of Commons,” he said.

The legislation also deals with the legal consumption age, where people will be able to consume marijuana and the creation of a corporation to manage cannabis sales.

Over the past few months the government made several announcements outlining the framework of its legalization plans.

Part of the preparations for legalization included the selection of four retail locations, which MacDonald said have all been chosen, although all the final sites haven’t been announced yet.

The stores will be in Charlottetown, Summerside, Montague and West Prince; the government still has to announce two of the locations.

“The renovations on those four locations will commence almost immediately,” MacDonald said.

Something that was not in the legislation is a price for cannabis, which will be subject to an excise tax of a minimum of $1 per gram or 10 per cent per gram.

MacDonald said he thinks the underground market will dictate to some extent what will happen with the price in P.E.I.

COLIN MACLEAN/THE GUARDIAN Finance Minister Heath MacDonald speaks to the media Tuesday at the legislature after tabling the government’s cannabis legalization legislation.