Senate Foreign Affairs Committee won't have time to fully examine how sweeping cannabis bill will affect international treaties, says Andreychuk

The Senate Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee won't be able to examine all the ways the government's cannabis legalization bill will affect Canada's international treaties before reporting back to the Senate by May 1, says Saskatchewan Conservative Senator Raynell Andreychuk, who chairs the committee. "It is going to be very difficult to accomplish what we are trying to do,” she said. Senate committees won’t have enough time to put together in-depth reports on the cannabis bill because of the “tight” timeline laid out for their study of the bill, said Sen. Andreychuk and Liberal Senator Lillian Dyck (Saskatchewan), who chairs the Senate Aboriginal Peoples Committee, which is also studying the Cannabis Act. “The timeframe is not realistic, so somebody has to continue to look at the consequences internationally,” after the committee finishes its work, said Sen. Andreychuk. She said the bill would affect Canada's ability to fulfill obligations under three international drug treaties, as well as possibly the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and perhaps others as well. Five committees have been assigned to study the bill, C-45, and four of them have been given until May 1 to finish their work—nine sitting days, by the Senate's ordinary schedule, from when they received the bill after second reading. At least some of the Senate committees will likely sit extended hours to finish their studies. The Senate Aboriginal Peoples Committee, which was asked to study the bill’s impact on Indigenous people, will have to keep its report short because of the “tight” timeline, said Sen. Dyck. “This can’t be a really thick report because there’s just not enough time to write it and get it translated, that takes a while as well. So it will be a fairly condensed report: what we heard, what we recommend, and with any luck, suggested amendments,” Sen. Dyck said. “It’s a controversial bill, it’s part of the election platform, it’s a bill that many Canadians are seized with and thinking about, and there are advantages and disadvantages, and we have to sort through all of that in a very quick time frame,” she said. The Cannabis Act would fulfill a key piece of the Liberal Party's platform when it won power in the 2015 election. The bill has been controversial, particularly in the Senate, with Senators from multiple groups expressing concerns about everything from the impact on the Canada-U.S. border, to organized crime and the heath of young people. The opposition Conservatives may not table the bulk of their proposed amendments until after the committee stage, according to Conservative Senator Claude Carignan (Mille Isles, Que.), his party’s critic for the bill in the Senate. The chair of the top committee handling the bill, Liberal Senator Art Eggelton, said late last month that amendments should be made during the committee stage, not after, to allow enough time for the Senate to examine them before the final vote on the bill, scheduled for June 7. ‘We should have been given more time’ The leaders of the Senate Conservatives, Independents, Liberals, and the government’s representative in the Senate agreed in February on a timeline for the progression of the Cannabis Act, Bill C-45, through the Senate Chamber, thereby taking the use of time allocation in the Senate off the table. As part of the deal, the bill was sent to the Social Affairs Committee once it passed second reading, but four other committees—Aboriginal Peoples, Legal and Constitutional Affairs, National Security, and Foreign Affairs—were also asked to examine limited aspects of the bill and report back to the Senate and the Social Affairs Committee by May 1. Social Affairs must then incorporate those reports, and its own work, and issue a final report, likely with recommended amendments, by May 29, six sitting days before the final June 7 vote. “We should have been given more time, earlier, to do the job properly,” said Sen. Andreychuk. The Foreign Affairs Committee may choose to sit for extended hours to study the bill after the Senate returns next week, she said. The committee has asked Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) to testify before it. The Aboriginal Peoples Committee members may have to include general recommendations in its report, and make a case for more specific amendments afterwards, directly to the members of the Social Affairs Committee, said Sen. Dyck, partly because formal amendments are drawn up with the help of the Senate law clerks. The Aboriginal Affairs Committee is also considering asking some expert witnesses to craft their own potential amendments to the bill, which could then be forwarded to Social Affairs, said Sen. Dyck. The Senate law clerks will likely be busy in the coming weeks. The cannabis bill is controversial, and Senators are expecting that several, if not many amendments to the bill will at least be put forward in the Senate. Many of the opposition Conservatives have raised concerns with the bill, and the Independent Senators who now form a plurality in the Senate have shown themselves more willing to amend government bills than has historically been the norm in the Senate. Several Senators following the bill have said they expected Senators to lobby their peers on Social Affairs as it decides which amendments to bring forward to the Senate in its report. The Senate will decide whether to adopt that report and those amendments in a vote after the report is tabled. The Aboriginal Peoples Committee took the unusual step of sitting all day on a Monday on March 26, hearing witnesses on the bill, said Sen. Dyck. The Foreign Affairs Committee will try to include specific recommendations to the Social Affairs Committee, said Sen. Andreychuk, though how specific they can be is “a question of time.” Sen. Andreychuk and Sen. Dyck said they had been swamped with emails from Canadians with opinions on the bill. “At times it actually sort of almost blocks your email, because so many emails are coming through,” said Sen. Dyck. Tory amendments coming at third reading Conservative Senators will likely wait until the final debate on the government’s cannabis bill to introduce some of their most substantial amendments to the legislation, said Sen. Carignan, who is coordinating the opposition Conservatives’ response to the marijuana legalization bill, C-45, in the Senate. “The real debate will be at third reading,” he said. The chair of the Social Affairs Committee, however, told The Hill Times in a previous interview that Senators should try to introduce any amendments to the bill during the committee stage, not third reading, because of a tight timeline for the bill’s passage agreed to by all groups in the Senate. “It certainly would be in the best interest of anybody that wants to move an amendment to get that on the floor in the committee,” said Liberal Senator Art Eggleton (Toronto, Ont.), whose committee is responsible for deciding which amendments to recommend to the Senate when C-45 completes the committee stage. “If they’re not a member of the committee, or not a substitute member of the committee, then they can get somebody from their group to put . But it would be best to get amendments on the floor, whatever amendments there are going to be, at committee,” he said. It is rare and may be unprecedented for the Senate to send a bill other than a budget bill to multiple committees. “It’s a big challenge this bill, and it’s a big change from the past, so we’ll just have to make sure that at committee we get a balance of witnesses, that we get the different perspectives. We don’t need hundreds of witnesses, but we need good witnesses with perspectives that help give us a total picture of what needs to be decided,” said Sen. Eggleton. Sen. Carignan said Senators were still discussing which amendments to C-45 may be necessary, and that it wasn’t especially important that amendments be introduced at the committee stage. There is talk in the Conservative caucus of a possible amendment to raise the minimum legal age for buying cannabis—currently 18 in the bill, though provinces can raise that—or others to address the level of THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, or to deal with anonymous offshore investors in cannabis companies, said Sen. Carignan. Anonymous investors have already used tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere to funnel $165-million into legal Canadian cannabis manufacturers, Le Journal de Montreal reported in January. Sen. Carignan and two colleagues travelled to Washington, D.C. last week to talk to U.S. officials about problems the legalization of marijuana could cause between the two countries. Sen. Carignan said he was told the move could cause delays at the border, as U.S. border officers could do more in-depth inspections of travellers heading south if they had reason to suspect they were carrying marijuana. Those inspections would in turn slow the traffic permitted to cross the border. Sen. Carignan, who sits on the Legal Affairs Committee, travelled to Washington along with Conservative Senator Denise Batters (Saskatchewan), another member of the committee, and Conservative Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu (La Salle, Que.), the deputy chair of the committee. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale (Regina-Wascana, Sask.) has previously said the pace of border traffic was a top concern for both countries, and that there should be no change to that flow since Canadians would still be barred from crossing the border with cannabis under C-45, as they have always been. Independent Senator Murray Sinclair (Manitoba), a member of the Legal Affairs Committee, told The Hill Times last month that C-45 was “ripe for amendment.” Senators could put forward an amendment to the bill that would give First Nations the ability to opt out of legalization, The Hill Times reported on March 28. Senator Peter Harder (Ottawa, Ont.), the government’s representative in the Senate, said the Senate should pass C-45 out of respect for the long-standing tradition of passing legislation that is part of the government’s campaign platform, in an opinion piece published in Policy Options Magazine on April 5. peter@hilltimes.com @PJMazereeuw Status of Government Bills HOUSE OF COMMONS Second reading: C-5, An Act to Repeal Division 20 of Part 3 of the Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1 C-12, An Act to amend the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Reestablishment and Compensation Act C-27, An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 C-28, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (victim surcharge) C-32, An Act related to the repeal of section 159 of the Criminal Code C-33, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act C-34, An Act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act C-38, An Act to amend an Act to amend the Criminal Code (exploitation and trafficking in persons) C-39, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (unconstitutional provisions) C-42, Veterans Well-being Act C-43, An Act respecting a payment to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to support a pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy C-52, Supporting Vested Rights Under Access to Information Act C-56, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Abolition of Early Parole Act C-68, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act C-74, Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1 C-75, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts Committee: C-59, An Act respecting national security matters C-62, An Act to amend the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act and other Acts C-65, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, and the Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1 (harassment and violence) C-69, An Act to amend the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act C-71, An Act to amend certain acts and regulations in relation to firearms Report stage: S-5, An Act to amend the Tobacco Act and the Non-smokers’ Health Act C-21, An Act to amend the Customs Act C-47, An Act to amend the Export and Import Permits Act and the Criminal Code (amendments permitting the accession to the Arms Trade Treaty) C-48, Oil Tanker Moratorium Act C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act C-64, Wrecked, Abandoned, or Hazardous Vessels Act Third reading: C-55, An Act to amend the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act Consideration of amendments made by the Senate C-25, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, Canada Cooperatives Act, Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, and Competition Act C-49, Transportation Modernization Act SENATE Second reading: C-50, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (political financing) C-51, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act Committee: C-24, An Act to amend the Salaries Act and the Financial Administration Act C-45, Cannabis Act C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) C-66, Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act

Senate Foreign Affairs Committee won’t have time to fully examine how sweeping cannabis bill will affect international treaties, says Andreychuk

The Senate committees are under a ‘tight timeline' to review the cannabis bill, and Conservatives say they could save major cannabis amendments for the final debate. Meanwhile, Senators are still hashing out whether or how to change the bill, while Canadians flood their email inboxes.

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