Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology
Issue No. 39 - Evidence - March 29, 2018
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 29, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, to which was referred Bill C-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other acts, met this day at 10:30 a.m. to continue the study on this bill.
Senator Art Eggleton (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
[English]
I’m Art Eggleton, a senator from Toronto and chair of the committee. I’m going to ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Chantal Petitclerc from Quebec.
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Senator Dean: Tony Dean, representing Ontario, the sponsor of Bill C-45.
Senator Galvez: Rosa Galvez, Quebec.
Senator Manning: Fabian Manning, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Poirier: Rose-May Poirier, New Brunswick.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman, Montreal, Quebec, deputy chair of the committee.
The Chair: This morning we continue with Bill C-45, An Act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts.
Today on our panel we have municipal representatives, so this is municipal government day at Social Affairs on the Bill C-45 hearings.
I am welcoming representatives from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Ville de Montréal, City of Waterloo, City of Richmond and the City of Calgary.
I’ll introduce you as we come to each speaker.
I hope today that we could give five minutes to each senator who has questions. Yesterday we only had time, given the tight schedule, to go one question at a time. We can try to see how we do with a five-minute period of time today.
Let’s get the initial presentations. We’ll start with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Bill Karsten is First Vice President. He is also a councillor in the City of Halifax. Alana Lavoie, Manager of Policy and Research for FCM, is also here.
[Translation]
Bill Karsten, First Vice President, Councillor, City of Halifax, Federation of Canadian Municipalities: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
[English]
I thought maybe today we would start with a joke from Newfoundland. Is that a good way to start?
The Chair: He’s going to be the judge here. He’s from Newfoundland.
Mr. Karsten: Mr. Chair, it is my distinct pleasure to be here with you today on behalf of FCM and our municipal sector to bring comments on this very important national issue. We are here of course today to discuss the legislative and regulatory realities of legalizing non-medicinal cannabis in this country.
We all agree that legislation needs to roll out safely and effectively for all Canadians. However, there’s absolutely nothing automatic or guaranteed about that. It will require strong coordination across all orders of government — and I emphasize all orders of government — and I would suggest, senators, that the role of the local government is critical.
As you know, FCM, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, represents 2,000 member municipalities representing 90 per cent of all Canadians in every province and territory, from big cities like Toronto, Mr. Mayor, and rural towns, to northern and remote areas.
Often when federal plans move forward it’s at the municipal level where the rubber hits the road. That’s true with infrastructure programs. That’s true with climate action. And certainly that’s true with legalizing cannabis. Our communities, after all, are the places where people work, live and raise their families and where cannabis will be produced, sold and consumed.
Bill C-45 places municipalities at the front line of keeping municipalities and Canadians safe and well served. That’s not just because municipalities are responsible for the bulk of the police forces that will be enforcing the law, including all new impaired driving rules, but municipalities also play key roles in everything from land use to business licensing and far beyond. They have a world of bylaws, rules and processes to adapt and develop.
This, Mr. Chair, is a big job. FCM has been helping our members get ready. I am very proud that in just a few short weeks FCM will release our full municipal guide to cannabis legislation, which we developed with legal, land use and policy experts from across Canada.
FCM’s tools will help municipalities from coast to coast to coast get moving on issues that they can address immediately and build work plans for the rest. But for the plans to succeed, we are still pressing the federal government for leadership in two primary areas.
First of all, Mr. Chair, we’re urging this government to coordinate with all levels of government throughout the implementation of Bill C-45 and its corresponding federal, provincial and territorial frameworks. We all face, potentially, a summer 2018 implementation deadline. The key to meeting that deadline safely and effectively will be concurrent legislative, regulatory and bylaw development by all orders of government.
There are many areas where local implementation depends on decisions made at the federal, provincial or territorial levels. Those include, but are not limited to, provincial retail distribution models, rules around personal cultivation, First Nation and municipal boundary overlaps — which has been raised by some of our members — the ability and authority to prohibit cannabis use and sales should that be the desire of a community — I think you’ll hear more about that a little later from another speaker — and municipal options if cannabis becomes legal federally without corresponding provincial or territorial laws and regulations.
Municipalities will continue to move forward based on what we see our federal, provincial and territorial partners are doing, but more engagement — and I repeat that — means better outcomes.
The cannabis regime we build together today needs to be safe and effective. The other key message is that it also needs to be sustainable. As much as sometimes we don’t like to talk about this issue, we need to address it, and that is we need to talk about costs.
Over the past year, FCM has worked with municipalities on the front lines of legalization to assess what implementation will mean for them. Our work suggests that, depending on the size of the municipality, up to 17 various departments will be affected within certain municipalities, affected and engaged in implementing this new regime.
One may ask, is a city that large to have 17 different departments? They are, and this will give you a sample taste. They include departments such as building services, community standards departments, fire and police departments, social housing issues, transit issues, customer service and communications. And we as municipalities, from coast to coast to coast, are the ones that will be called on to tackle issues such as local zoning and density bylaws, rules around minimum age of purchase, issues like possession limits, smoking restrictions, public nuisance complaints — not one to be forgotten — and safety concerns related to the building code.
We believe these are in fact appropriate roles for municipalities to play, but growing into these roles that lie before us will impose real costs. These costs include costs for things like staff time — I’m sure my colleague from Montreal can speak to that — and resources for training, for public health, for licensing administration and for bylaw enforcement.
FCM has estimated that the costs of implementing this federal commitment to our residents will range from $3 million to $4.75 million per year per 500,000 in population. For those of you who can equate that to where I come from, in Halifax we’ve talked about $2.5 million to, ballpark, $4.25 million as being our real costs moving forward.
This represents, in total, $210 million to $335 million per year in new costs each year.
That’s the thing about sustainability. It’s not just getting a cheque today to cover those capital costs; there are ongoing operational costs and ongoing costs. Everyone knows that local governments, which are our cities and small towns like Bishop’s Falls, Newfoundland, in this country don’t have that kind of fiscal flexibility.
That’s really quite fresh in my mind as we sit here today because in Halifax, we just finalized our draft budget yesterday, and to keep it under a 1.9 per cent tax rate increase, we started chopping things like $40,000 out of the budget to maintain that minimum increase.
Senators, we need new financial tools to get this done. We appreciate — very much, in fact — that the federal government has committed $81 million to support municipalities in training police for the new regime. That $81 million, however, from our vantage point, is only a drop in the bucket. I’ll quickly add that we appreciate that drop in the bucket, but it is a drop in the bucket.
One meaningful financial tool on the horizon is revenue sharing across orders of government — in particular, from the excise tax that will be levied on cannabis sales. FCM has recommended and continues to recommend today and into the future that one third of cannabis excise tax revenues be allocated to municipal governments to address administrative and policing costs. That, senators, is based on our very best cost estimates that already a lot of time and effort have gone into. Again, my colleagues in Montreal can speak very well to that. We believe that one third is fair and achievable.
As I’m sure you know, it was national news, and very much appreciated, that the federal government did respond to our call in December by increasing the provincial revenue share from 50 per cent to 75 per cent, so the additional 25 per cent could and should support municipal costs. The Prime Minister did underline that as his intent and the government’s intent in the house and then again in Budget 2018.
Now a crucial next step is to turn this commitment into reliable and sustainable arrangements for municipal governments in all provinces and territories.
I’m going to digress a little, but there are a lot of statistics and facts from many states in the United States that offer helpful precedent for smart revenue sharing. Every successful model in the U.S. includes allocations for local governments. We should try to remember that as we build our Canadian-made solutions. Of course, revenue sharing is but one financial tool municipalities could use, but there will need to be more in the tool box.
A primary objective of the cannabis act is to deter criminal activity, and experts say the way to starve the black market is to keep the price of legal cannabis low. For this reason, the Parliamentary Budget Officer warns that revenue from cannabis sales may start out very slow, between $618 million and $959 million per year projected.
I pause to say that regardless of whether the front-end revenues are slowly taking off, our local governments will still face the significant administration and enforcement costs, so we need to know that federal support will be available if cannabis revenues take some time to catch up.
At the end of the day, the federal commitment to legalize cannabis comes with, we believe, a federal responsibility to ensure that all governments, including local governments, have the tools to keep people safe. Police training funds, revenue sharing and beyond, we can and need to be flexible about the shape that tools take — not flexible about the outcome we need to achieve, but keeping Canadians safe and well served from coast to coast to coast.
In short, senators, we can summarize FCM’s recommendations and message today in two ideas: continued, strong engagement and long-term sustainability.
The federal government should continue to engage municipalities in building its regulatory frameworks and revenue models. Any cannabis regime’s sustainability depends on equipping local governments with the tools they need to administer and enforce it. When? Out of the gate and long term.
We’re proud that our collective municipal sector has a track record of delivering local solutions to national challenges. We look forward to working with the federal government throughout the progression of the cannabis act.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I thank you again for this opportunity, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you. Now that we’ve heard from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, we’ll hear from some individual municipalities. I would ask as much as possible for the speakers to keep to about a seven-minute time frame so that we’ll have an opportunity for dialogue with the committee.
Next we have, from the Ville de Montréal, Peggy Bachman, Director, Office of Government and Municipal Relations. She’s coming to us via video conference and is with Ms. Marie-Pierre Rouette, Member of Government Relations.
[Translation]
Peggy Bachman, Director, Office of Government and Municipal Relations, Ville de Montréal: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to appear before your committee and do so by video conference, from Montreal.
In the few minutes we have, I would like to focus on Ville de Montréal’s cost assessment.
I would first like to provide a little background. Montreal is clearly Quebec’s largest city and, as such, we think implementing cannabis legalization will have an impact in Montreal, given the density and size of our population. So very specific issues will arise in Montreal, and the city will probably be a model to other cities, in Quebec and in Canada. We wanted to prepare ourselves, as soon as Bill C-45 was introduced, so that the city would really be ready to implement cannabis legalization as soon as the legislation comes into force.
Ville de Montréal’s role of will obviously vary depending on the legal framework implemented, based on the laws that will be adopted both on a federal level, with Bill C-45, and based on the provincial legislation currently under consideration by the National Assembly, in Quebec City. All the conclusions of what we will present to you will also depend on the legal frameworks that will be adopted.
Since we want to be ready, we have taken a number of measures, at Ville de Montréal, including contracting the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton firm to provide the most accurate cost assessment possible for the city related to cannabis legalization implementation. We have also created an expert panel on cannabis legalization to advise us and guide us through the process, and the panel includes the public health branch, as well as experts from academia and communities who could help us throughout the process.
First and foremost, I want to talk to you about costs. We obviously agree with what was just presented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the FCM, and we are working closely with the federation on this file. Like the FCM, we have also asked that part of the revenue be given to municipalities. We want cannabis legalization to really cost municipalities nothing, and we don’t want any property tax money to be needed to implement legalization. We want a fair share of the tax revenue associated with the sale of cannabis, so that we can meet our obligations to our citizens, be it in terms of promoting healthy life habits, living together or public safety. And since we strongly advocate for municipal autonomy, we want the equivalent in terms of revenue to be transferred to municipalities.
The study carried out last fall lays out two types of impacts: one-time impacts, related to the act’s implementation, and recurrent annual impacts. I think you received a copy of that study, which is public and available on Ville de Montréal’s website.
We have gathered an internal committee with many Ville de Montréal services and boroughs, since the city is divided into boroughs that manage local services on their territory. We asked those services how they thought cannabis legalization would impact their activities. Here are the services that responded to us and provided data: the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal, the Service des ressources humaines, the Service des communications, the Service du développement économique and the Service de la mise en valeur du territoire, focusing on urban planning.
We have also consulted other services, for which the impacts were deemed negligible. It was very difficult to quantify them. Either there was no impact in terms of cost, or the impact was impossible to quantify today based on the current state of knowledge. That study was carried out last fall, so legal frameworks had not yet been established.
Regarding the costs you have in your documents, the transfer of cannabis production, distribution and retail sales from the illegal market to the legal market — because that is what we are talking about — will require significant additional efforts by the SPVM. That is where the most significant costs are. The SPVM will have to fight smuggling and tax evasion, so significant efforts will be invested. We are often asked why additional police services have to be deployed when we are talking about legalization.
As for the fight against smuggling, the objective is to shift consumption toward the legal market as much as possible. Significant efforts will have to be deployed to fight smuggling in order to deal with the illegal market and ensure that more consumers move toward the legal market. As we explain in our documents, the SPVM will have to deploy teams. The costs vary. We determined that those teams will have implementation costs and, more importantly, significant recurrent costs. The cost of fighting smuggling is estimated at $6 million on a recurrent basis.
We have also carried out sensitivity analyses to compare the costs provided by the SPVM to those from other places. We made comparisons with the City of Denver, in Colorado. By comparing the number of police officers per capita, we see that it is possible to decrease costs, but it is clear that at least some 20 additional police officers will be needed and that recurrent financial impacts for the Ville de Montréal could vary from $5 million to $9 million. Even if we lower the forecast amount a bit and go with the minimum, the impacts are still significant. Impaired driving also has to be considered. The entire issue of road safety will require considerable resources from the municipality in terms of training police officers and acquiring screening devices. For the time being, there are no screening devices that are 100 per cent reliable. So benchmarks will have to be established and those devices found. Right now, significant resources are allocated to police officer training for the behavioural analysis. That technique is currently used to determine whether a person is driving impaired or not.
The other financial costs include the Service des ressources humaines, since Ville de Montréal employees will have to be trained, and frameworks on impairment in the workplace reviewed. In a city, many people have to drive vehicles or use machines. There are specific challenges in that area.
As for the Service des communications, we are planning awareness-raising campaigns. Even if federal or provincial campaigns are launched, we are planning to provide communication actions locally on the ground, in neighbourhoods, so that people would understand municipal regulations and how they apply in their community. Prevention campaigns will also be provided with community groups.
The urban planning service will have to review its regulatory framework and coordinate the action with city boroughs. Those are examples of impacts we have identified so far.
[English]
The Chair: Ms. Bachman, could I ask you to wrap up, please? We’re past the seven minutes.
[Translation]
Ms. Bachman: I am done. The impacts amount to more than $9 million for the implementation of cannabis legalization, not including all the financial costs we cannot assess at this stage, since legal frameworks have not yet been adopted.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you.
We will now hear from Shayne Turner, Director, By-Law Enforcement, City of Waterloo.
Shayne Turner, Director, By-Law Enforcement, City of Waterloo: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the members of the standing committee for this opportunity to appear before you.
The local municipalities in Waterloo region, like many municipalities across Canada, are preparing for the foreseeable implications of the legalization of cannabis and what this will mean for our communities. I wish to share some of the insight from our work as well as the discussions we’ve had with our partner municipalities and federal and provincial agencies. I will also take a moment to comment on the potential opportunities to influence upstream prevention with respect to early use by youth.
Municipalities, because they are the front-line connection to our communities, will play a significant role in determining the successful implementation of this initiative. Some municipalities may be affected more than others, at least during the initial phase. Some municipalities may be affected differently than others based on various provincial policy frameworks, but regardless, certain fundamental concepts still apply. There is a need for clarity and collaboration across all levels of government and adequate and sustainable capacity and resources.
We sense a strong municipal commitment to doing our part to achieve the objectives of the federal and provincial policy framework, and we are committed to ensuring the best possible actions to fit the nature of our respective communities and to manage the expectations that will arise. However, our ability to deliver on this strong commitment comes with its challenges, again, specifically referring to role clarity and coordination among all levels of government and the sustainability of resources.
I would like to now indicate the various areas of potential involvement and concerns identified at the municipal level. These include managing public expectations and competing priorities around the enforcement model; public consumption and community expectations around that enforcement; monitoring home cultivation and the associated safety concerns; public nuisances, including odours detectable in or around adjacent units or lands; consumption lounges and the impact on business licensing; assisting other enforcement agencies in addressing illegal storefronts; and finally, the training costs as municipal law enforcement officers become involved in areas of administration and enforcement that are completely new to them.
Next I’d like to comment on the issue of expectations versus priorities as identified by our working group. A key component of municipal responsibility is the often challenging task of responding to and managing community expectations. Given the attention paid to the cannabis file, we anticipate a high degree of public scrutiny, leading to a variety of expectations on all sides of the equation. It is possible and highly probable that public expectations and enforcement priorities may not align. We only have to look at how the opioid situation is challenging communities across Canada. All competing pressures will impact our ability to meet public expectations.
Our discussions indicate that some municipalities are still unclear as to the specific role they will play with regard to implementation, but what is clear is that public expectations are likely to influence our roles, either at the beginning or as implementation plays out.
Further, we know that there will be a variety of approaches across Canada. This is evidenced by recent policy frameworks released at the provincial levels. While provincial autonomy is important, the potential impacts in terms of a general public understanding should not be ignored. This variety of approaches can impact perceptions and can contribute to a lack of clarity among the public. All this leads me to underscore the importance of strong collaboration among all levels of government, role clarity within the municipal sector and clear public education and awareness messaging.
With regard to the financial implications, we are pleased to see the negotiated revenue-sharing agreement between the federal and provincial governments. We also believe the revenue-sharing model recently negotiated in Ontario is a positive first step in recognizing the important role that municipalities play in determining successful implementation that meets our overall shared objectives.
Having said this, there is a need to ensure sustainable funding over the long term. A key message we heard from jurisdictions where legalization has been implemented is that we need to be prepared for change. Regulations and processes at the local level will, purely out of necessity, need to adapt over time. As a result, this will require ongoing monitoring and adaptability at the municipal level.
It is important that we have the capacity and resources to achieve successful implementation. Our community members on all sides of the issue will be watching and expect little else.
The last piece is prevention, and more specifically upstream prevention. Rates of cannabis use by Canadian youth are among the highest in the world. The research is clear that early use of cannabis by youth impacts brain development. We have an opportunity, and some would say an obligation, to influence upstream prevention for our youth sector.
The City of Denver has undertaken to track teen perception since legalization took effect in their city. One notable finding is that teens’ perception of the level of risk associated with cannabis use has decreased since legalization. We must be cognizant of the impact legalization may have on perceptions and ensure that such perceptions do not have an adverse impact on the health and well-being of our youth.
Public health is a shared responsibility. We need a strong commitment from all levels to fund the development of a series of strategies that advance and support upstream prevention in a way that does more than just deter early use but also explores why youth turn to cannabis products in the first place.
In summary, my comments are intended to underscore the importance of collaboration among and within all orders of government, role clarity in developing strong messaging to ensure people understand who is responsible for what within their communities, strong prevention strategies, and finally adequate resources to help ensure successful implementation and achievement of our policy objectives. Once again, thank you for your time and consideration.
Chak Kwong Au, Councillor, City of Richmond: Mr. Chair, I will confine my presentation to seven minutes. I’m glad that I’m making the presentation because we think it is important for municipal government to have this opportunity to address the issue.
If marijuana is being legalized, the municipal government will be impacted the most, yet we have been consulted the least, so this is a good opportunity for me to bring the issues we are concerned about to your knowledge.
Maybe I will say a few words about Richmond so that you know the context of our city and where we are coming from.
Richmond is a mid-sized city with a population of 220,000. Sixty per cent of our population was not born in Canada, so we are basically a fast-growing immigrant city. About 50 per cent of our land is under agricultural land reserve, meaning they are not supposed to be developed. This is quite unique in Richmond.
We have the longest life expectancy in Canada with the age of 86. We are well above the national average. We are also the healthiest city in B.C., if not in Canada. We are the first city to ban public smoking, and we have the lowest smoking rate and the lowest rate of obesity. This is the context that we have. In the city, our citizens are leading a very active and healthy life.
There are five issues that we are concerned about. The first one is home cultivation. We are concerned that the bill as is will allow people to grow marijuana at home. In our assessment of the situation, we think this is not enforceable and will defeat the original stated purpose of Bill C-45, which is to protect young people from having access to marijuana. If people can just grow their own marijuana at home, there will be no way to control it. We cannot send police officers to knock at every door or respond to every complaint and do an investigation. Theoretically, if people can grow their own plants at home, kids will have more opportunity to get in touch with marijuana because it can be grown in a place where kids of their own or kids of other people might be present. This is our number one concern.
The second concern is about the age of possession. We noticed in all provinces not one of them would suggest that we should allow minors under the age of 18 to have possession. Yet in the bill as proposed right now, there seems to be a loophole that kids will be allowed to possess 5 grams of marijuana. This is a problem because 5 grams of marijuana means 15 joints. It’s a lot, and we would be very concerned that the message is that the kids can have possession and use it.
The third concern we have is the readiness of law enforcement institutions to implement the law or the regulations. We have heard a lot from other cities and across the country that we are not ready. We don’t have the resources, the training, the tools or the manpower to carry out enforcement once this legislation is passed and enforce it fall or this summer.
It is because of these concerns that Richmond has concluded that we have to oppose the legislation as is, and that’s why Richmond has taken the position of being strongly opposed to the legalization of marijuana in this bill.
The two other comments I would like to make is that we are opposed to using farmland for the production of marijuana. We have written to Health Canada and our provincial government saying that we don’t want marijuana to be grown on our farmland. In Richmond, we have the best 1 per cent of farmland in B.C. Our stance is that we should preserve our farmland for growing food, not marijuana. Marijuana production is an industrial activity, not a farm one. That’s why we say farmland should not be used for growing marijuana.
Finally, regarding costs, we have heard from different sources that it will be a huge cost for municipal governments to implement or regulate the legislation. We have also written to the federal and provincial governments asking for 50 per cent of the revenue generated from the sale of cannabis to be given to the city in order to carry out whatever we need to do.
In short, we feel that this bill right now is very problematic. It’s not clear on many aspects. The approach right now is that the government seems to imply that they are going to use the trial-and-error approach. Let’s do it first, and if something doesn’t work out, we can change it in due course. This is a trial-and-error approach. The cost is we might be using our young people as guinea pigs, so we don’t know exactly what we’re trying to do.
It is like companies saying that each department can do things in their own way, and each department will say you can do things in your own way to tackle the issues. So I think the lack of clarity and coordination is the biggest concern we are facing right now. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, councillor. We’re happy to know that Richmond is a place where we can live longer.
Finally, we have Matt Zabloski, who is a business strategist for Calgary Community Standards.
Matt Zabloski, Business Strategist, Calgary Community Standards, City of Calgary: The City of Calgary appreciates the opportunity to speak to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology about our experience with non-medical cannabis legalization.
Municipalities like Calgary have been delegated several roles and responsibilities in responding to legalization. Calgary echoes the concerns of the FCM that municipalities must be financially supported to ensure our citizens are safe and well served. We appreciate the engagement of municipalities to date on this complicated change and would ask for continued engagement with local governments as we are on the front lines of administering and enforcing cannabis regulations.
We have undergone extensive preparations to ensure that we are prepared for legalization. We assembled a cross-municipal working group in late 2016 to begin identifying and addressing concerns. We have identified more than 17 affected city business units, 11 of those with substantial operating and financial impacts. We have undertaken extensive research and engagement with Calgarians to better understand their views and concerns and to ensure that our approach reflects the values of Calgarians.
We have engaged other jurisdictions which have previously undergone legalization, and we continue to work with our counterparts across Canada to collaborate and to learn from one another. We have had dozens of city staff working on this project and expect that draw to increase upon legalization.
I would like to refer to the federal priorities in legalizing cannabis as touch points for my comments. These priorities have been identified as critical to the success of the legalization of cannabis, and I think that it is appropriate to frame my comments around them.
One of the federal priorities is the protection of public health. We are in the process of amending our land use bylaw and business licence bylaw with regulations for retail stores and licensed producers. We are creating bylaws which address Calgarians’ concerns around public consumption, and we have a coordinated safety response team which has visited multiple grow ops for patients of the current ACMPR system to address health concerns.
As the realm of personal production expands and individuals are able to grow their own cannabis, city staff have serious concerns over potential health implications and resources required to regulate non-commercial growing.
Another federal priority is keeping cannabis out of the hands of youth. As part of our proposed land use bylaw amendments, we have required minimum distances for cannabis retail stores from schools, and we have required a separation distance between stores to avoid clustering. Municipal business licences for retail stores will be contingent upon stores adhering to a variety of regulations, including that minors not be allowed on the premises.
Calgary has experienced demonstrable success in ensuring age verification compliance from alcohol retailers in Calgary by coordinating with the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission through our business licence inspections group.
The amendments to our land use bylaw and to our business licence bylaw and the continued enforcement and oversight of these regulations will be critical to ensuring that cannabis is kept out of the hands of youth.
The third federal priority is keeping the profits out of the black market. Our proposed bylaw amendments will require background checks for owners of licenced cannabis businesses in Calgary.
Additionally, we have heard that to eliminate the black market we must ensure there is a viable, competitive, legal market for cannabis. To date, Calgary has not experienced the same proliferation of black market dispensaries as some of our municipal counterparts. But we have been contacted by hundreds of potential retailers, and more than 90 of them have begun the licensing process with the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission and intend to operate in Calgary.
We are cognizant that having a viable retail framework in place for the first day of legalization will be extremely important to ensure that Calgary’s market is not defined by black market sales in its initial stages. We have been working under the timelines afforded us to ensure that we have a comprehensive retail framework established in Calgary for day one of legalization. We have also begun coordinating our multiple enforcement groups to ensure that we are capable of responding not only to black market activities but to all aspects of cannabis legalization.
Preparing for the retail market in Calgary, providing opportunities for retailers and educating and regulating these retailers is expected to be a continued and extensive draw on resources. Similar to FCM’s estimates, our initial analysis shows that fulfilling the municipal role in cannabis legalization will cost the City of Calgary between $8.2 million and $12.9 million annually. A large share of the municipal cost is for policing and enforcement, particularly as a city with an independent police force. And, like all police forces, the Calgary Police Service is facing increasing demands for service beyond cannabis legalization.
We recognize the rationale for legalizing cannabis in Canada, and we also recognize the importance of the priorities that the federal government has established to legalize cannabis in as effective and safe a manner as possible. To succeed in achieving these priorities, municipalities will require resources. We have seen this acknowledged in the agreement on the federal excise tax, and we will continue to work with our provincial counterparts to address the costs that we will incur. But we will also need resources in the forms of tools and information to ensure and sustain a viable framework for legalization. We will need studies on health effects, impairment and the many societal impacts of legalization. We will need continued data on youth usage rates, and on the economic implications of legalization. We will need continued communication and education for public servants, for industry and for citizens. We will need a government that is flexible and quick to adapt to a rapidly evolving industry. And, primarily, we will need a government that continues to engage with and respond to Canadians.
While we are all working towards cannabis legalization, it has become apparent that legalization is more of a starting line than a finish line. Much like the three independent federal priorities for cannabis legalization, there are also three interdependent levels of government required to realize those priorities. We continue to demonstrate our commitment to achieving these priorities through our local preparations.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today and for the thoughtful and continued engagement with municipalities throughout this process. I am happy to answer any questions.
The Chair: Thank you to all of you for your presentations, including the overview from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and then the individual municipalities from across the country that have participated.
Now on to senators at the table asking questions, and we have a long list here. We have five panellists here, and if you don’t direct your question, I will ask Mr. Karsten to respond first on behalf of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and if anyone from the different municipalities wants to supplement the answer, then please put up your hand and give me a signal to that effect.
Senator Dean: Thank you, everyone, for a terrific set of presentations. I do have two or three questions.
The first relates to what I am going to say has been a massive response on the part of municipalities, so we acknowledge you are at the front line on all of this to the government’s call for intergovernmental action and implementation planning.
I will say that I have rarely seen a large, significant national project moved from the starting pistol to being very close to being ready for implementation in such a short period of time, and I want to acknowledge the huge amount of work you have done for that.
Mr. Zabloski talked about starting this in 2016. I don’t think that’s unusual.
Mr. Karsten, you referenced, as did all of our panellists, the continuation of strong engagement. I’d like you to tell us a little bit more about the nature and quality of the consultation and collaboration that you have experienced so far, because I think there is something implied by that statement.
Second, we absolutely understand the cost pressures that will result from this, perhaps unusually so at the municipal level where you’re often being asked to take on more responsibilities without a new revenue flow. This is a case where it’s not a matter of if. It’s how and when and quantum. I’d ask you to acknowledge whether I have that sense right.
The third is there is considerable benchmarking under way right now by Statistics Canada and Health Canada to benchmark youth consumption rates, type of consumption and harms in advance of legalization that will be used as benchmarks for close monitoring going forward, something that didn’t happen in U.S. states and, I think, one of the big learnings. I wondered whether you were aware of that benchmarking and the fact that that notion of data monitoring is being thought about.
Mr. Karsten: Thank you very much for the question, senator, and through you, Mr. Chair. Yes, yes and no. That was the quick answer.
On the continued engagement, I certainly think the message is that, as you’re probably aware, the excise tax will be reviewed again in December and, subsequently, every two years. That’s one of the areas that FCM is very adamant about in terms of needing to continue to discuss where we are with our costs, because as I indicated, the ask was 33 per cent, and that is not necessarily the arrangement upping the 50 to 75 per cent.
The trick to that part, and we alluded to it, is that the Colorado model and some of the U.S. models would have shown there is a direct carve out to municipalities. We are still cautiously optimistic, particularly in the case of Ontario, which is a great precedent to say a model can work, that municipalities are going to get $40 million out of the first $100 million for two years. So that is relatively good. But in the case of Nova Scotia, for example, we are still at a point with our justice minister debating whether or not — we know, but the justice minister is questioning whether or not there will be any costs to municipalities. That puts us, province by province, in a precarious situation. It’s those types of continued engagements we need to have.
Everyone has certainly talked about the costs. A personal example that I can leave in just one sentence is this: We did, as I alluded to in my comments, finalize Halifax’s budget in draft form yesterday, and at the very last opportunity, because you may know as well, which is unique, we have an integrated police force, the RCMP with a municipal force, which covers the entire region. Just at the last minute, the RCMP came back with a draft budget requesting six more officers, specifically for cannabis enforcement, much like Montreal and other speakers. This year we can manage the budget in house, because we approved $265,000 for the months that are left, but on an annual basis, that’s $880,000, almost $1 million.
Could you remind me of the third question?
The Chair: The five minutes is up, sorry.
Senator Seidman: Thank you very much for being here and for your terrific presentations. Senator Dean voiced two of my questions, so now I’m going to allow you the opportunity to continue. I will rephrase my questions somewhat, and then perhaps we can hear from the individual municipalities, if that’s okay with you, Mr. Karsten.
Mr. Karsten, you did say the FCM’s recommendations are based on two ideas, engagement and sustainability. If we all understand clearly what we heard here today, those two principles are intrinsically connected. This isn’t a one-shot deal where you inject a certain amount of money and you hope that will be fine forever. Quite the contrary, what we heard today is that it’s an ongoing budgetary expense of quite a substantial amount of money.
Were you consulted in the lead-up phase while Bill C-45 was being developed? My greater concern is whether there is a certain built-in process for ongoing periodic consultation and engagement with the municipalities around the implementation, your required resources and, specifically, the revenue-sharing principles. That’s the principle here. There has to be a certain periodic process for engagement and sustainability.
Mr. Karsten: I can say in one sentence, Mr. Chair, that certainly the FCM, being the national voice for municipalities, did at the front end and has continued to talk to the department on an ongoing basis. So that is much appreciated. We’re willing partners to deliver this in a safe, effective manner. “Safe” and “sustainable” are the operative words.
If anyone else wishes to pick up on that.
Mr. Turner: I can say from the perspective of Waterloo region that we have been connected with FCM in terms of their engagement at the federal level. A lot of our engagement has related to discussions with the provincial secretariat in Ontario. Most of our engagement has been at that level, but we have certainly been in tune with all of the work that FCM has done on behalf of representing municipalities at the federal level.
Mr. Au: I think engagement is important. As a city, we’ve only been consulted once by Health Canada, last November, and it was about implementation.
It’s great that we’re being asked about the question of implementation. However, from a city’s perspective, we would have liked to have been engaged even earlier in the making of the legislation itself, because we may have the best implementation model. If the bill itself has problems, it’s not going to solve the issues that we are concerned about. That’s why we are very disappointed that we were not asked to be engaged much earlier so that we could voice our concerns about the bill itself earlier. That’s why we have to raise these questions at this very late stage.
I also noticed that perhaps not many of the cities have responded to the survey conducted by Health Canada. Many of us felt that this is already a done deal. There is not much you can say or try to influence the making of the legislation itself. That’s why I’m here today asking you for the opportunity to address this issue, to listen to us and to take care of the concerns that we have.
It’s not just about costs. Actually, right now, we do not know how much it will cost us to implement the legislation, if it is being implemented. We don’t know how much we are ready if the bill is going to be passed and implemented this fall. There are too many things that are unclear.
When we asked the RCMP in Richmond, they said they didn’t know what to do. Everybody seems to be waiting for other levels of government and other institutions to come up with suggestions or some kind of policy or details.
Even in B.C. today, the provincial government has not rolled out a policy or a list of bills or legislation that would help us to form our implementation. They’re still talking about maybe this, maybe that. This is the biggest problem for us at the municipal level. We don’t know what to do.
As I mentioned earlier, it seems that the federal government is downloading the responsibility to the provincial government, and the provincial government, not knowing what to do, says, “You can do it yourself at the municipal level.” This will create a lot of mess.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: I will put my question to you in French, but you can answer me in the language of your choice.
I would like to hear from you, Mr. Karsten, on the position of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on the distance of sale and consumption sites, which will be referred to as cannabis consumption parlours, and the closeness of schools or educational institutions. I was surprised to see that Alberta would impose a distance of 100 meters, which is about 30 or 40 seconds on foot. In Montreal, I heard about the possibility of a branch at Berri-UQAM, close to the university and the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal. I don’t know whether your organization has adopted a position, in terms of protecting youth, on how close the sites should be.
[English]
Mr. Karsten: FCM doesn’t really get into that ground-level type of policy work. We do respect the rights of municipalities to differ one from another. I think that’s healthy for the people we serve. That’s why we have public engagement, engagement at the local level, and sometimes even public hearings on matters. It’s to get the vibe and the heartbeat of what the local community wants.
We would defer issues like that and allow the municipalities, like Montreal and Richmond, et cetera, to make their own decisions.
The Chair: Does Ms. Bachman have a response on this, since it involves Montreal?
[Translation]
Ms. Bachman: I do. I can provide a clarification that will answer other questions about the consultation at the same time.
In Quebec, a Crown corporation, the Société québécoise du cannabis, will take care of the distribution. We are already in discussions with that corporation. We just wanted the decision to establish branches to be made with the city’s support. The issue is very complex in a dense area like Montreal. We want those sites to be located as far as possible from schools. When it comes to cégeps and universities, the situation is completely different. The density means that extremely important distances cannot be maintained either.
We are also looking at the current rates of cannabis use, which have been provided by Montreal’s public health branch on the territory. Various criteria are used, including accessibility to mass transit. We do not want to focus on areas that would only be accessible by automobile. We talked about Berri-UQAM. That is a location we are considering. Those who are familiar with Montreal know that there is currently a significant amount of illegal consumption at that location. We are worried about the closeness to schools and are looking for locations that are as far as possible, but in a very dense region.
Senator Petitclerc: I have a pretty simple question. You talked about a proportion of 30 per cent that would help you implement the bill. Based on your estimates and those of municipalities, will that percentage be enough to do what is necessary, in addition to what the provinces and the federal government will do, especially in terms of education, awareness-raising and programs?
Ms. Bachman, you talked about local communication and prevention campaigns with community groups. Is that essential spending included in your projections? Will you have enough money to do what is necessary?
[English]
Mr. Karsten: Again, other municipalities or speakers may wish to speak to this.
This simple answer is no. That’s why we have advocated from the beginning, as I said in my remarks, for 33 per cent of the overall revenue. And it is interesting to hear a call for up to 50 per cent from one of our municipal members. So given the 25 per cent extra that the federal government is giving to the provinces, certainly the message is that provinces now have to step up and pay our costs. Whether it’s going to be enough, we’ll look, and that’s where the continued engagement comes from.
Senator Manning: Thank you all of our witnesses this morning. I want to try to get quickly to the point.
Several of you raised the issue of the enforcement of the legislation, the training that is required by the enforcement officials in your cities. And that’s one of my points.
The other is the home cultivation of the marijuana plants. As an example, in an apartment building with 100 apartments, you will be allowed to have 400 plants. Even if half of the people have them, you still have 200 plants, and the enforcement of that into the homes.
Many people have expressed a concern that we could be within 100 days of legalization. There seems to be a grave concern being raised with regard to the enforcement of the law. I spent four years on municipal council, and I’m happy to be in the Senate and not have to deal with this, where the rubber meets the road, as Mr. Karsten said.
I want to ask, is it your feeling that maybe we should slow down this process a bit to give cities, municipalities across the country, time to prepare themselves for it? I realize that we’re against the clock here, but I’m very concerned that we’re going to bring in the law, legalize marijuana, and we’re not going to be ready in our cities to deal with the societal changes that are going to happen within our country.
Mr. Karsten: Thank you very much, senator. On the first issue of policing and whatnot, I think several speakers have spoken to it, but I’ll defer to any of my colleagues who wish to speak.
I would point out that our position from day one has been that we recognize very strongly that this particular piece of legislation was a promise made during the Liberal government’s election campaign. They’ve introduced it, and we respect that decision for federal lawmakers to make laws, but we’ve said from day one that we will work together as partners to deliver, as long as we can do that in a safe and effective manner.
We’re ready, with all the work that FCM has done. I say ready — if implementation comes, we will deal with it. We’re ready enough that we know it’s coming. So I leave that for other people to actually decipher and figure out themselves whether or not we’re ready, but from our point of view, whenever it’s there, we will deal with our issues.
The Chair: Anybody else from the municipalities?
Mr. Au: As a short response to your question, yes, we would like to have the process slowed down because we need to get things ready.
What I think Mr. Karsten is talking about is if you make us do the implementation, we have to. But are we ready? No. There are still so many things that are uncertain. For example, we don’t know how much it’s going to cost us. There could be hidden costs; there could be unexpected costs that we do not know at this point in time.
With home cultivation, we have real concerns about the provision that each household can grow four plants. I mentioned that this is not enforceable. We cannot knock at people’s doors to find out whether or not they have four or five or six plants.
Also, in a city like Richmond, we have high-rise buildings. If we say each household can grow four plants, that will mean hundreds of plants being allowed and grown in high-rise buildings because of hundreds of households in one building.
Those are the concerns that we have. We don’t know what the impact would be on the safety of the building and other things. As I mentioned, there’s the access of marijuana by children. That’s why we say home cultivation by itself is the most important problem to us.
If there’s only one thing we could ask you to change, that is it. Home cultivation is the one thing where we, as a city, would like to see changes.
The Chair: Anybody else?
Mr. Zabloski: From the City of Calgary’s perspective, we obviously have a plan to be ready for legalization. We had been planning for July 1. It sounds as though there is going to be extra breathing room. We’ll take that. Basically, we do have a plan to be ready. However, I will echo concerns over the ability to enforce the home growing aspect of things.
We do have a plan to see how it works out, and I don’t know that there’s really any other way than to see how it’s going to work out. The realistic way of how this will roll out is going to be different than any plans that we have to get there. We’ll see what happens once this gets legalized, but we do have a plan for July 1, or had a plan for July 1, I should say.
Senator Poirier: Thank you very much. I had a lot of questions, but I’ll try to keep it within the five minutes also.
I’m from a small, rural municipality, and I’m going to bring some points that I’ve heard you say that they have repeated over and over with the RCMP and all those things. It’s an issue — the bylaws, are there enough in place, are they ready for it. That’s another issue.
We’re also hearing that it depends on which province you are in. I know New Brunswick is allowing the homeowners to decide whether the cultivation of the four plants will be indoors or outdoors as long as it’s in an enclosed space.
They are looking at whether this going to cost us even more, because if it’s indoors, they have to have certain lights. If it is in high-rise apartment buildings, are we increasing the risk or chance of fire? Is it bringing in extra costs for the fire departments in our municipalities?
If we have some places where they’re saying, “No, you’re not allowed to have the plants indoors in apartment buildings,” and municipalities could make that decision, does that mean that other homeowners are looking at possible theft in their insurance? What’s the cost? And what will the insurance companies come up with for the individual homeowners who have all these extra lights and everything in their homes?
That is one among many issues that I’m hearing out there. So I’ll start with that with our municipalities, and if time allows I will have more questions. If not, I can go on second round. Thank you.
Mr. Karsten: I would defer if someone else wishes to pick up on that and put a municipal perspective on it.
The Chair: Is there anybody else?
Mr. Zabloski: From our perspective, we think that education is key around the home-growing piece. As we’ve heard, we don’t see that going door to door as an enforcement piece is realistic to ensure that everybody who has a house in Calgary is growing properly.
So we see the education side of this as being key — people knowing that for their lights or for their plumbing and that type of thing, having the information they need in order to do so safely. Again, obviously, there are costs associated with the education aspect of it. It’s getting that out to the people who need it, and it’s one of the things we are working towards as a municipality.
[Translation]
Ms. Bachman: We assessed the difference in impact, since we did not yet know what the legal framework would be. For the time being, the Quebec bill provides that cultivation at home will not be permitted in Quebec. However, we have done an assessment and, in our cost study, there is a difference of $1 million in recurrent costs when it comes to the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal. So we are talking about an additional $1 million per year if cultivation at home was ever permitted. First and foremost, those costs are mainly related to prevention for the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal, and a dozen employees will have to be specifically assigned to that task.
[English]
Mr. Au: I think you raise a very good question. This is what I referred to earlier. There might be hidden costs that we are not sure of at this point. We also know that the insurance industry is saying that if home growing is allowed, the cost of insurance will increase tremendously. Some insurance companies may even say that they are not going to insure the household for doing that.
Another example is that we saw this happening when medical marijuana was being legalized some 10 years ago. The number of people growing their own plants has increased.
Again, we asked the RCMP if they know how many people are actually doing that at home. The answer we got was no, they don’t. They cannot keep track of people who are growing their own plants at home.
That’s why this is going to open up a can of worms. Manitoba and Quebec have already said that they are not going to allow homegrown cannabis. B.C. is actually considering it. We have been talking to the solicitor general of B.C.He said they are thinking about it, but because of the fear that this might give rise to a constitutional challenge, they are not saying that they are going to do it now.
So it’s a wait and see. That’s why it goes back to what I mentioned earlier. We cannot say, “Okay, province, you can do your own thing,” or “Municipal government, you can do your own thing.” Something has to come from the top.
If each city or each province is going to set up different regulations and policies, one consequence is that there might be all kinds of legal actions against the city or against the province on the issue of human rights, constitutional rights.
So if the federal government says that you can grow it at home, I think the city or the province can be challenged if they say no to home growing. That’s why, again, it goes back to the question of the lack of clarity.
Senator Galvez: Thank you very much. I also want to be quick.
I have seen these ways of calculating the costs. As an engineer, I am accustomed to doing reserve calculations or doing calculations from other perspectives and trying to arrive at the same number and seeing if it matches.
The government has said one of the main purposes is to take away marijuana from the children, and the other is to take away the black market.
Have you done the reverse calculation? In other words, how many more young people or users need to consume marijuana in order to pay your costs?
Second, have you considered — this is the other way of calculating — and I agree with you that there are so many not very clear ways of calculating these things, but I think that because we have already discussed it and we have already said how bad it is for the health and this is not working, so I want to tackle it now from the cost point of view.
So there is evidence that more people will be consuming marijuana in order to generate the budget for you to do all the 17 services that you need to increase service. But there are also going to be health services and hospitals and ambulances, the other costs in health.
Are you calculating these costs? How much? One third or half of it? And what about in permanent work, the accidents at work? If you have edibles and edibles kick in later and stay there, do the symptoms stay with the person for longer periods?
Is anybody taking care of these costs?
Mr. Karsten: Thank you very much for the question. I’m going to defer this question to Alana, who is our manager of policy and research, because they have dug into all of these aspects, I think.
Alana Lavoie, Manager of Policy and Research, Federation of Canadian Municipalities: Thank you very much. It’s a great question.
I think we have not at this point in time been able to do the full stream, the upstream cost, the calculation back in terms of what increased use would do for our own revenue streams and then when it’s calculated out against those potential impacts on the health system.
What we have done is we’ve taken what we see as initial implementation costs and very front-line operational costs for municipal governments in Canada in order to implement this and to create a sustainable and ongoing system.
That’s the first step. I think, to a point that Mr. Zabloski made, this is going to be very much a learn-as-you-go activity, and those other costs and the savings throughout the justice system, the impact on the health system, will be something we’ll be able to assess against these preliminary estimates at a later point. They are definitely things on our radar to look into as time goes on.
In terms of those upfront costs, FCM has put forward a range of costs in order to recognize some of the flexibility that there needs to be to reflect the realities in various municipalities, including rural municipalities, which might be different than the realities in large urban contexts. But again, certainly taking the question in note. Thank you.
The Chair: Do any other municipal representatives want to weigh in on this?
Senator Galvez: My other point is that this is a trial-and-error or guinea pig experiment. What happens if the experiment fails? When do you evaluate that the experiment has succeeded or failed, and what is the goal you will attain in order to say it succeeded or it failed?
Mr. Karsten: Thank you very much again, senator, for the question.
The first thing that comes to my mind is that there are examples — and we’ve done an extensive review of the examples in the United States, in Denver, Colorado — where the legalization of marijuana in that state has been, for lack of a better word, a successful program. So I don’t think that anything has really been tabulated in terms of if it would fail.
I look at issues like this. It’s my own little cliché that I’ve looked at over the last many years. I look at it as a journey and not a destination. I don’t think this is an issue where all of a sudden we say, “Look, give us until September and we’re going to get there.” This is an evolution, a road that we’re on together. That’s what I referred to earlier, that the municipalities’ and FCM’s position is that basically we are a willing partner. You sort out what you need to sort out. As far as sustainability goes, we need help with that.
Very quickly, I do want to respond that there have been a lot of good questions, and hard questions, which have gotten some really good, hard responses, if you will. My thinking there is that those hard questions do need to be asked, but together we can collaborate. Again, that’s where the engagement part comes in.
Matt has a great point. I think the quote Matt used was that we’ll learn together. If we’re going to take this journey, let’s make it successful and make it work for all Canadians to the best of our ability.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: My question is for Ms. Bachman. We learned that prevention and awareness-raising campaigns had already been conducted with target groups on social networks or media to which young people aged 12 to 17 had access.
Following your collaboration with the public health branch in Montreal, have you already begun implementing that campaign? It should precede the legislation’s arrival. You should not wait for the legislation to be implemented to begin the campaign. Has the process begun, and what is the campaign’s format?
Ms. Bachman: So far, we have worked with our expert panel, and the public health branch is also part of it. The Ville de Montréal will definitely not be able to conduct a campaign alone. The important part of the implementation will be the partnership among all levels of government. We want to partner with federal and provincial governments. So the public health branch is part of the provincial government.
I could not tell you whether the public health branch has already developed the preliminary part of the campaign. We will certainly be more likely to be engaged with the actions taken on the ground with groups, since major national campaigns will be conducted by provincial organizations.
Of course, the Ville de Montréal will collaborate, but our entire approach is related to public health. Yes, we want to recover costs, but our main concern is doing a lot in terms of prevention to reduce harm, especially for young people.
We will collaborate with the provincial government, but for the time being, I admit that our efforts are focused on the legal framework of the bill under consideration. We will be able to conduct more targeted campaigns once the legal framework has been established. We have to know where it will apply and where people will be able buy and consume marijuana. We will also have to know how the Crown corporation’s branches will be established and what the legal age for using marijuana will be. Those are all issues that will be regulated by the legislation. It is very difficult to conduct campaigns without that legal framework.
[English]
Mr. Au: Senator, I feel I can tie your question to the other questions that were asked earlier.
We can never find the perfect solution or the perfect formula for implementation, and perhaps we don’t have to wait until we have the perfect solution. However, I think there are certain things we can do right away, like education. I think this has been a problem because at the city level we need more resources in order to do that.
As part of the solution, education should roll out first. I think we can do it here today if the government will provide us with more resources.
Having said that, I go back to the question of how we are going to measure success. I’ve expressed my concern about the trial-and-error approach. Of course, I think we can measure success by the stated objective of the legislation, which is to prevent young people from having access to marijuana.
Even on that issue, we can have two separate things. One is actual consumption. We can begin to have the data. We can collect data on the current situation, and then we can measure it, say, a year or two years after that.
However, there’s another aspect of it that is not actual consumption, but the perception, which was mentioned earlier. If there’s a loophole in the bill, young people can misunderstand the intention. I understand the intention of the non-criminalization for young people if they are accidentally in possession of marijuana. However, right now the bill can be read as if young people are permitted to possess up to 5 grams of marijuana, and I think that kind of perception is counterproductive. We cannot stop young people from having that kind of perception.
So it’s the perception that is very difficult for us to measure. More and more young people might perceive that it is allowable for them to possess if the legislation itself is unclear. As mentioned earlier, up to this point, as far as I know, no province has given an endorsement to that provision. All provinces, including B.C., are saying that we want the law to be very clear that there’s no simple possession for minors under the age of 18.
Senator Omidvar: Just on that point, we had Parliamentary Secretary Bill Blair here yesterday speaking on the bill. He clarified for us that there is zero tolerance for possession of cannabis for children or young adults aged 17. What will happen is that they will get ticketed if they are found with it. What will not happen is they will not be criminalized unless they possess more than 5 grams.
So I think you’re right; we need to get the messaging out about the intention of the bill.
My question is really around home cultivation. I think nothing is more local than a plant in your windowsill, so I get that.
My question is to Mr. Karsten. When I look at the policy objectives and the policy rationale for the bill, one of them was to allow for access for people in rural and remote communities so that they can have a limited supply without having to resort to the illicit market. I’d like to know from you, Mr. Karsten, because the other jurisdictions are mainly larger municipalities. I would say Halifax is a larger municipality. What do your representatives from rural and remote communities say to home cultivation?
Mr. Karsten: First of all, I think we need to back up and remind ourselves that home cultivation is allowed under the medical marijuana regulations. So park that for a second.
Municipalities in each province and territory do have provincial-territorial associations, but then in Nova Scotia we have UNSM, the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, which would be more in charge of data. I sound like a politician when I say it’s not in our jurisdiction.
The municipality can certainly advise the UNSM as to what their position is, so that they get it right with the province, but that would be more of a provincial input as well.
Am I correct, Alana, in terms of what the province would move to?
Ms. Lavoie: Certainly within what is permitted in the federal regulations, we heard a lot today about the need for flexibility to have it reflect the reality of whatever the province, territory or local government is looking to do.
From a national perspective, we hear, as one can imagine, very different things across the country. From rural and remote municipalities in some areas, it’s something they are more comfortable with and are happy to have, as it is access to something all Canadians in other parts of the country will have access to, so there is that question of equality.
But in others it’s something they would like to take a more cautious approach to. This speaks to the need for all orders of government to work collaboratively on this to ensure local governments continue to have the flexibility to reflect the reality they are facing.
Senator Omidvar: As far as I remember, and I used to work a fair bit with FCM before, you also have a small and rural or remote communities caucus or group. Do they have a position on home cultivation? If so, could you forward it to us?
Mr. Karsten: Absolutely, we’d be pleased to do that. Alana, could you expand on that? I have not heard personally, but maybe they have through rural caucus.
Ms. Lavoie: I get to spend a lot of time with our rural folks and the rural caucus as part of the work I do with FCM. They support the FCM board position of having flexibility across the country and ensuring we reflect local realities, so our position is consistent across all of our caucuses.
Senator Omidvar: Let me ask Mr. Zabloski. I think it’s really interesting what I hear from the City of Calgary versus what I hear from the City of Richmond. You seem to have embraced the fact that July 1, or whatever date, you have to be ready to a certain level. Can you describe to us maybe on a scale of 1 to 10 how ready you are and where you are most ready and where you think you have to really buck up to get ready?
Mr. Zabloski: Currently, on a scale of 1 to 10 I would say we’re a 5 or 6. That should get much higher next week. We go to our council on April 5 with proposed bylaw amendments, and we hope that on that date we will have bylaws in place in the City of Calgary to address this.
We are most ready around the retail aspect of things. In Alberta, one of our primary concerns is adapting to the privatized retail market. Public consumption is another thing we hope to get our arms around next week.
Where I think we have concerns would be areas like the home cultivation aspect and how that will realistically be enforced. That would be our primary concern.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much, everyone. I just have a couple of short questions, almost like a poll.
First of all, I would like to ask the cities that are here if they would support prohibiting or at the very least delaying the coming into effect of allowing the growth of cannabis in a home that’s being proposed under Bill C-45. In other words, would you limit to only growing cannabis by licensed growers on specifically zoned premises?
Mr. Turner: Absolutely, we would support a delay in that aspect of the bill. We feel home cultivation will be difficult to enforce given our constrained ability in the law enforcement sector to be able to get into private dwellings.
Mr. Au: My short answer is yes.
The Chair: Anybody else on this? Ms. Bachman? Do you wish to respond to the question?
[Translation]
Ms. Bachman: Yes, I do. Quebec’s legislation currently does not allow cultivation at home.
[English]
Mr. Zabloski: I think I would be in support of a delay. Realistically, if there was a ban entirely there are difficulties enforcing that, too. I think it’s grappling with the realities of what it’s going to look like post-legalization, whether it’s allowed for home growing or not. I know it’s a bit of a waffle answer, but I don’t have a good answer on that. It will be difficult to enforce either way.
Senator Raine: Mr. Zabloski, as you say, it’s going to be difficult either way. I would ask all of you this: What do you see the benefit to society would be, if any, of allowing this product to be grown in a home where it cannot be certified as having a certain percentage of THC or as being healthy in terms of all kinds of other reasons, and we know there are a lot of difficulties around it? Is there any positive benefit to allowing it, given that, as I understand it, you can now order through Canada Post anything you want, and it can be delivered to every home in the country?
Mr. Zabloski: I think we’ve heard about the rural aspect and people having access.
For the City of Calgary, as far as benefits, I think that Albertans have the ability currently to make their own wine or beer at home, and I think that they kind of see that as a similarity. That’s one thing that we heard: As municipalities, don’t reinvent the wheel on this. Where there are similar other industries, align it with those; people understand that. Realistically, there are going to be enforcement issues with this, and we certainly are waiting to see how those play out.
Mr. Turner: In Ontario, it’s difficult for us to really quantify a specific benefit. We believe the challenges probably outweigh the benefits. The biggest concern for us is just our ability to enforce, and the challenge we’re going to have with a ban is dealing with the medical piece, because on the medical piece, my understanding is that there may not be a movement on that particular piece, given court decisions. So being able to determine what is medical versus what is recreational will create a big challenge for us.
Senator Raine: On the same line, given that it seems there is a pretty good consensus that this is problematic, I guess my final question would be this: If we’re looking at the collection of excise taxes and that revenue flowing through to deal with enforcement and all the other costs of municipalities, is there any good reason to allow the proliferation of home growing, where there are no excise taxes, yet we will have the same issues?
Mr. Turner: The senator makes a good point.
We struggle to determine the benefits, but we know what the implications of enforcement will be, and that will come at a cost not supported by revenue or taxation coming from the home growth.
Senator Munson: Thank you very much. It has been a very informative morning, and thank you for what you’re doing on the front lines.
You’ve expressed your concerns, and we heard terms such as, for example, “problematic,” and “not clear on many levels.” We heard words like “loophole,” “black markets.” We heard a quote saying, “We’re in a precarious situation,” and, “Are we ready? No.”
We are the Committee of Social Affairs, Science and Technology. We do have an opportunity here as we race towards July 1 with this timetable. We can amend this bill. We can put amendments in, and we can agree at this committee—all parties—on it.
To put your thinking hats on, what would an amendment, in your estimation, look like that would enhance, make your life easier to adapt to what’s coming next?
I would like to get a feel. You’re politicians, and I think you can think quickly on what an amendment might look like. It would be helpful for this committee to have that so we can see whether we agree on it, and refer it to the Senate and government to change aspects of the bill through an amendment process.
The Chair: They’re not all politicians, by the way, but we will start with one: Mr. Karsten.
Mr. Karsten: Thank you, and yes, I am a politician, so I will deal with this one quickly. The interesting role of why I’m here is to represent the national view, as we understand it, through FCM. I say very respectfully that some of these questions FCM wouldn’t really put a policy to. We have said pretty much what’s in my briefing: We support the rollout if it’s safe and effective for Canadians.
If I take that hat off and be my councillor representing back home, that would be a different thing, but that’s not the role I’m playing here today.
Senator Munson: Now you sound like a politician.
The Chair: Does anybody else want to respond to that?
Mr. Au: As I mentioned earlier, we would like this homegrown policy to be amended. Our argument is that for legal product to be put on sale and allowed in Canada, it doesn’t need to be homegrown. You can still have a legal product processed by a factory or manufacturer, and with better quality control.
Even if we allow recreational use of marijuana, it doesn’t need to be grown at home. It is much better if it can be produced by a company so that you know what’s inside the product.
The Chair: Ms. Bachman, do you have a response on that question?
[Translation]
Ms. Bachman: It is more complex for us to provide a response, since the Quebec legislation will apply across our territory and is satisfactory to us overall.
We have asked the Government of Quebec to make it possible for municipalities to adopt specific regulations on consumption locations — for example, to respect municipal autonomy.
Regarding funding issues, we received a response yesterday in the budget tabled by the Government of Quebec, which is satisfactory to us over the short term. So $62 million of revenue is set aside for municipalities over the next two years. And now, our concern will be securing sustainable funding. That may be the most important element for municipalities — ensuring that the funding they receive to implement the legalization is sustainable.
So, as I was saying, over the short term in Quebec, yesterday’s budget fully meets our expectations for the next two years. The issue will still have to be dealt with over the long term.
[English]
Senator Munson: Are your police forces really ready to enforce what this legislation will bring us in the sense of having the equipment and technology to detect cannabis regarding an over-the-limit kind of thing?
Mr. Turner: In the Waterloo region, talking with our law enforcement community, I would say that they’re not yet prepared.
Mr. Au: If I can answer on behalf of the RCMP, I would say no.
The Chair: The RCMP in Richmond, you mean.
Mr. Au: Yes.
Mr. Zabloski: It’s same answer from the City of Calgary: To date, they’re not ready. They have a plan to be ready, but they are not as of today.
The Chair: Ms. Bachman, are your police ready?
[Translation]
Ms. Bachman: When it comes to road safety, we do not currently have reliable screening devices. So when it comes to screening, we are waiting for responses.
[English]
The Chair: We have 15 minutes left.
Senator Raine: Does the chair want to ask a question?
The Chair: You bet I do, but I will let members ask questions first.
Given that, maybe it’ll be four minutes each, then, instead of five to get this through.
Senator Galvez: You know Canada is a multi-ethnic society. In addition, it has First Nations, Inuit and Metis people. I consider some of these ethnic groups and First Nations groups more vulnerable with respect to health.
I want to do the parallel with a phenomenon we have in environment which is called “not in my backyard.” No one wants to have these types of stores near their houses. Maybe some senators are in favour of allowing people to grow cannabis in their homes, I know this will be completely devastating for the populations in the North. They already have so many problems with addictions.
But in the big cities — and because you are from big cities — I wonder if you are worried about racial profiling and the proliferation of neighbourhoods where police may have tendencies to think that these groups of people may have issues with illegal marijuana or the black market.
Have you thought about this, and have you put money into that problem?
Mr. Karsten: On that particular point, I will speak as the local councillor from Halifax. The way Nova Scotia opted to set it up is similar to other models, and that is in addition to our local liquor stores when they are earmarked. Nova Scotia started with a limited number, with no public outcry about proximity. In 100 per cent of the cases they are in a large mall setting, so it’s not within the confines of our communities as such. So for us your question is not proposing a problem, as we see it.
Mr. Au: You asked a question about retailing, but I would like to speak to the issue of consumption. Personally, I will say marijuana is an offensive drug. It’s different from other types of drugs. If you use other types of drugs, you can do it discreetly. No one knows. But marijuana is different. The smell spreads. It will affect people living next door, even though you are using it in your own place. This is one aspect I will address at the municipal level.
Senator Poirier: The federal government has been saying they want to make public awareness and education a priority for them. Yesterday, when we had the minister here, someone in the group shared concerns that we’re hearing from our local communities that they’re not seeing publicity on that on TV or in newspapers. She mentioned to us that they’re doing it more oriented toward youth, so they’re going to the various social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter.
As municipal leaders, have you seen any current public education campaign in your respective cities? Regardless of yes or no, have you ever been consulted by the federal government on that? Do you plan to launch your own public awareness campaign on the health issues concerned with cannabis, including the laws and consequences people need to know about if they do certain things? Do you have the funds to do this public campaign if you have not? So I would like to hear from different municipalities if you have seen anything publicity-wise in your communities.
Mr. Zabloski: We’ve certainly seen provincial advertising campaigns, educational campaigns, begin. I have seen one or two. I’m not sure whether they’re national campaigns specifically from Health Canada or whether they’re from other organizations. But we are certainly cognizant of this. We have funds set aside to communicate city bylaws to citizens of Calgary, and we are coordinating with the province to have a more comprehensive educational campaign for the city. As for the larger health effects and that type of thing, we don’t really have the expertise in house to educate about that ourselves, and we would certainly rely on the federal government for that type of information.
Mr. Au: We haven’t heard anything from the federal government, and we are not getting any additional funding for education. I argued earlier that it should have been right now instead of tomorrow or later. In terms of what Richmond is doing, I’m glad to tell you that Richmond is the only city in B.C. where we have all of our Grade 5 students go through a program called D.A.R.E., a drug-prevention program. All of our Grade 5 students would have that program, and I think probably that is one of the reasons we have a lower rate of drug consumption in Richmond, and we have a higher rate of active, healthy lifestyle in Richmond. So I would recommend that to all cities across the country.
Senator Poirier: Could you please share that program with our clerk?
Mr. Au: Yes.
The Chair: If you can get to the clerk of the committee information about the program, we’ll distribute it to the different senators.
Senator Dean: Thank you very much for all of your terrific advice. Generally speaking, I’m going to say that I have a sense, from this discussion today, that there is a fairly high degree of readiness and willingness to be ready on the part of our municipalities.
We know that the Minister of Health announced several weeks ago that there will be a requirement of somewhere between 8 and 12 weeks to complete preparations beyond Royal Assent before the green light is given for retail operations to begin. I think, as we look at our calendar, many of us were sort of looking toward the end of August at the earliest, as we put those weeks on the calendar. It’s the end of March today. This is a question for Mr. Zabloski, who has responded already on the point scale. It’s 5 to 6 this week; he expects it to accelerate next week with bylaw development. On that point scale, looking five months down the road, Mr. Zabloski, where would you expect to be in terms of readiness?
Mr. Zabloski: I don’t think that I could confidently say we would ever be at a 10. One of the points that I’ve tried to make today is that, as much as you can prepare, you’re never sure what legalization will actually look like. After next week, we hope to be at an 8 or 9 in Calgary as far as preparations go, specifically for the retail side of things.
Senator Dean: Second question to any panellist: I’ve heard about data. I’ve heard about the importance of benchmarking. We know that Statistics Canada and the Department of Health have been running benchmarking surveys on who is using, how much, how, perceptions of harm, number of indicators. We heard from a witness from the Brookings Institution a couple of weeks ago, at another committee, that this is way ahead of what any U.S. state did. In fact, it may be global leadership. Is this the kind of benchmarking and data — we have indicators before and afterwards so that we can track, in real time, the impact — that municipalities would find helpful going forward? Ms. Lavoie?
Ms. Lavoie: Absolutely. I think, overall, as we go forward, particularly over the first two years, creating the benchmark with the survey that is being undertaken right now is going to be important. Also, tracking not only those indicators around consumption use, youth engagement and public awareness but also the costing pieces, as well. That’s a piece of work that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is considering now how best to approach, going forward, so that we can have, two years from now, a realistic perspective of what we have been facing and what the future road to this looks like as we’re all learning as we go.
The Chair: Anybody else on that?
Mr. Zabloski: In response to that, the information is great, but one thing we want to emphasize to our council is to use that information once we have it. I would emphasize that here as well. We can’t just put this out the door and leave it. We need to have more meetings like this after implementation to see what’s working and to pull back if things aren’t.
Senator Raine: Given the information and the science that is out there now on the ongoing harm done to the developing brain up to the mid-twenties, I want to find out your thoughts on the age. It appears most provinces have lined up with the alcohol consumption age, and I would suggest that they shouldn’t necessarily be lined up.
Were you consulted by your province on establishing a minimum age, and do you think it should be older?
The Chair: Who are you asking this of?
Senator Raine: All of them.
Mr. Au: We were consulted by the provincial government of B.C., and we recommended the age of 21. But I think the provincial government is saying 19 would be the age.
I would also like to mention that I just received a survey result this morning. It is a survey that has been conducted in the last five days across Canada, and three questions were being asked. The first question was: Should home cultivation of marijuana be completely banned? The result was that 87 per cent strongly agree that it should be banned, and only 6 per cent say that they disagree. The second question was: Should minors be allowed to possess any marijuana? The result is 95 per cent strongly agree that minors should not be allowed to possess. The final question was: Should the implementation be delayed until after the institutions say that they are ready? The answer is 95 per cent strongly agree that we had better wait for the institutions to be ready.
[Translation]
Ms. Bachman: The Province of Quebec has indeed consulted us on the issue of legal age. We were consulted before the provincial bill was even introduced.
We then participated in consultations on the bill, and the age of 18 is very satisfactory for us, both out of concern for alignment with tobacco and alcohol legislation. In addition, our expert panel recommended to us the age of 18 as the most appropriate benchmark, once again out of concern for alignment and also so that, between the ages of 18 and 21, difficulties in terms of access, legality and illegality are avoided. I think that data on young people’s consumption indicated that there was heavy use between the ages of 18 and 21 after all. For our expert panel, that was also data to consider when recommending that the age of 18 be used for Quebec, once again based on the alignment with legislation on alcohol and tobacco.
[English]
The Chair: We’ve reached the end of our meeting, and I want to thank all of our panellists. I appreciate FCM, Waterloo, Richmond, Calgary, Ville de Montréal all being part of this discussion on our municipal focus with respect to Bill C-45. Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)