The federal Liberal government’s handling of the marijuana legalization file is a travesty.
Last week, we finally got a hard date, July 1, 2018. Excuse me while I do a double-take, shake my head and say what the fudge?
This legislation should already be passed in the House and Senate and on its way to Royal Consent. That was the promise, and it was easily doable except for lack of will.
I have, more or less, always been attracted more to the space in the political spectrum occupied by the Liberal Party than other parties. And I like consensus, but in its absence, I will usually take compromise, as most reasonable people will.
Nevertheless, I have always had a problem with the approach of trying to be everything to everybody, which is a standard practice of Liberals when it comes to courting votes and seems to have given them led feet on this file. Faced with the reality of actually governing, an old saying presents itself: “Liberals will always break progressive hearts.”
Which sometimes works, in a strategic political sense, because by pissing off the left, you ingratiate yourself to the right. Then you just have to find some way to piss off the right, ingratiating yourself to the left, splitting the vote and coming up the middle.
Seriously though, in this case, trying to build too much consensus, was unnecessary and is satisfying nobody. Trudeau has taken what was a relatively non-controversial election promise all the way to a majority government despite all the media attention it got because of the highly motivated equally idiotic (and angry) fringe opponents and proponents on the far Jesus and far stoner. Most Canadians agree it is time to stop the insanity.
And most of the arguments for delay are, frankly, nonsense.
It is cruel to say, ‘we are absolutely positively going to do this’ and then continue to give non-violent, mostly productive members of society criminal records while you procrastinate. At the very least, a moratorium on simple possession charges is in order while they tediously and unnecessarily study an issue that has been studied for decades and has even been the subject of a Conservative-majority Senate recommendation for legalization that was ultimately cynically quashed by Jean Chretien.
Also, the idea that we have to delay so we can deal with the ‘toking and driving’ issue? Nonsense.
People are already doing that. How does it change with legalization? I personally do not know anybody who is currently not a pot smoker who is going to start, and I have asked around extensively. I am certainly not going to. And even if I, or they, did, what are the chances we would toke and drive? We do not drink and drive. Those who do toke and don’t drive currently are unlikely to start. Those who do will continue to.
There’s also the police officer training excuse. Why the hell are police officers not trained on this already? In fact, they are specifically because it is illegal. When it is legal, the only difference might be that instead of charging them with both the CDSA offence of possession and the Criminal Code impaired driving, they only get charged with impaired driving.
Legalization gives us the best of both worlds. Do it. Legal. No problem, be happy. Do it and drive. Illegal. Problem. Go to jail.
Detractors usually also bring up stats from Colorado where they made pot legal and had a huge uptick in driving offences. There are all kinds of reasons for why that may or may not happen or apply here (toker tourism?), but the fact remains it is no reason for delaying, and perhaps a reason for expediting (toker tourism?).
The federal government needs to get this done. Will there be problems? Of course. Will we fix them? Probably. If we don’t fix them, will they be better than the problems we have now? Probably.
And then there is the money. And this is the most perplexing thing of all for the delay. The potential tax grab from this is ridiculously high. The potential reduction in justice system costs may also be extensive. Governments across the country are struggling with revenue and here is a juicy bud ripe for the picking that they simply refuse to grab.
A cynical person might conclude that the timing, then, is political. Implement all this stuff closer to the next election cycle and reap the benefits in the voting booth. It is a strategical risk, since the economic and social benefits may not start showing themselves that close next election.
I really hope that is not what is going on here, but it is seriously perplexing how a sitting government with a strong majority, and a clear mandate from the public, keeps dragging its feet on a file that should already be in the history books.
