First Nations leaders say they must be given the right to govern the sale and distribution of legalized marijuana within their communities and to set the laws that will oversee its use by their people. Chiefs attending an annual conference of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) on Wednesday expressed wide-ranging views on the federal Liberal government's plan for legalizing cannabis by next July 1. Some told the assembly they have not had enough time or money to prepare for the change and urged the AFN to ask for a delay in the implementation of Bill C-45, which would make marijuana legal in Canada for the first time in 94 years. [continues 636 words]
Health Canada is easing its prohibitions against safety testing of medical marijuana, which will allow registered growers and patients to have the product scrutinized at federally certified laboratories to ensure it is safe. The federal government plans to legalize marijuana for recreational use next year, and the move will give added protection in an unregulated market to consumers, many of whom worry that some marijuana being sold as medicine could contain harmful contaminants. Hundreds of storefront dispensaries have sprung up across the country, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver. The government considers them illegal, and had no oversight of their products, leaving medical users with no way to ensure their safety. The government did not allow patients access to federal labs capable of detecting potentially harmful contaminants. [continues 880 words]
Tom Mulcair, whose New Democrats are promising to decriminalize marijuana possession but not to make it legal, says he understands legalization will happen eventually under an NDP government. The NDP Leader spent part of the late afternoon on Tuesday taking part in a town hall that was organized by Vice, an online news service that caters to a young demographic. The audience wanted to know why Mr. Mulcair was advocating that marijuana merely be decriminalized and not legalized. He responded by saying decriminalization is something he could do immediately if his party is elected to form a government next Monday. [continues 381 words]
A re-elected Conservative Party would give police more resources to go after marijuana grow-ops and create a help line for parents who are concerned about their children's drug abuse, but Stephen Harper says he remains opposed to loosening pot laws. The Conservative Leader told an audience of supporters Tuesday in Markham, north of Toronto, that his party believes the use of illegal drugs remains too high in Canada, especially among young people. "Keeping dangerous and destructive drugs away from our children isn't a point of debate, it's simply the right thing to do," he said. [continues 560 words]
Despite Ottawa's clear stand against marijuana, illegal dispensaries have flourished, while cannabis is now traded on the TSX As the Conservative government's champion in the war on pot, Health Minister Rona Ambrose has taken some heavy blows and faces the prospect of more. Ms. Ambrose was "outraged" in early June when the Supreme Court ruled that legal medical marijuana users would be permitted to eat the drug as well as smoke it. She was "deeply disappointed" last week when Vancouver said it would regulate marijuana dispensaries, most of which obtain their supply from unauthorized sources. [continues 1116 words]
Described as an authoritative public servant, parliamentarian leaves behind a legacy of political achievements for the federal Tories For much of his life, Senator Pierre Claude Nolin was a model of Tory partisanship. He was campaign strategist for Brian Mulroney and Jean Charest. He helped Stephen Harper win the 2006 election. He was a leader in the backrooms of conservative politics in Quebec for three decades. Yet, during the short time he was Speaker of the Senate, Mr. Nolin tried to loosen the partisan shackles that constrain his colleagues. And, as a parliamentarian, he followed the directives of his heart even when they were at odds with those of the Conservative leadership. [continues 1299 words]
Police appear to be losing their zeal for investigating marijuana-related offences - particularly those related to cases of trafficking and production. While they are still searching people for pot and laying charges of possession, statistics suggest they are increasingly less likely to go to the trouble of finding actual drug dealers. The federal Conservative government has introduced a slate of legislation aimed at punishing those who profit from marijuana production and distribution. But criminologists say those laws are not working in a country where the majority of people, and perhaps even a majority of police, do not recognize the recreational use of cannabis to be a crime worth prosecuting. [continues 502 words]
Growers of medical marijuana say they will expand their selection and provide better measures of medicinal content as Health Canada determines which companies will be granted licences to produce the drug commercially. "Eventually, we are going to evolve it to a true medicine," said Brent Zettl, the CEO of Saskatchewan-based Prairie Plant Systems which, for more than a decade, has held the lone government contract to grow the pot that the federal department dispenses to many of Canada's medical users. [continues 334 words]
Key law-enforcement officials are praising obstacles created by the Harper government to limit federal approval of new supervised injection sites for drugs users. But health experts who work with addicts say the proposed rules ignore the evidence that the sites save lives. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq tabled a bill in Parliament on Thursday that would require the federal government to consider a range of factors, including the views of police and local government officials, before granting exemptions to drug laws and allowing the clinics to operate. [continues 690 words]
New rules drafted by the Harper government for establishing supervised injection sites for drug addicts could make it more difficult for Vancouver's InSite to be replicated elsewhere in Canada. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who expressed disappointment in 2011 when the Supreme Court of Canada ordered the government to stop interfering with the controversial clinic, will table a bill in the House of Commons on Thursday that clarifies how supervised-injection sites can be created. It is expected to focus heavily on the need to consult members of the community and respect their values and voices. That means any opposition could make it difficult for proponents of a supervised-injection site to move forward. [continues 469 words]
One prospective grower of medical marijuana is a law student who hopes Health Canada officials will be impressed by his "charisma and character." Another has already developed his own "one of a kind" strain of the plant that will help "hundreds, if not thousands, of people from the pains and discomforts that they feel in their everyday lives." And another owns a "highly secure" facility in British Columbia with panic buttons, bollards on its service bays and "bomb grade" anti-shatter windows. [continues 593 words]
The Conservative government's omnibus crime bill has returned from the Senate to the House of Commons with amendments that will allow terrorism victims and their families to sue state sponsors of terror. The amendments are similar to those proposed by Liberal MP Irwin Cotler when the bill was before the Commons justice committee. They were rejected by the Conservative MPs on that committee and, by the time the government decided they were important additions to the legislation, it was too late to make changes to the bill in the Commons. So it was up to Tories in the Senate, specifically Senator Bob Runciman, to make the amendments. [continues 377 words]
A broad slate of justice measures - many of them contentious for their cost and for the limits they place on judicial discretion - is about to become law as the House of Commons puts an omnibus Conservative crime bill to a final vote. The bill, which the opposition says will fill prisons without making streets safer, has been returned by the Senate to the House of Commons with amendments to allow terrorism victims and their families to sue state sponsors of terror. [continues 444 words]
The decision by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to stand against a crime bill that he once supported was a blow to the federal government's justice agenda -- one that allows the Conservatives to highlight the policy gap between the two federal parties. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson held a news conference Thursday to lambaste Mr. Ignatieff for his party's about-face on Bill S-10, which would impose mandatory minimum sentences for some drug crimes, including the cultivation of as few as six marijuana plants if the crop was intended for sale. [continues 599 words]
More than 500 health professionals from across Canada have written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and opposition leaders to protest a government bill that would impose mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes including growing small amounts of marijuana. The physicians, scientists and researchers, led by the Urban Health Research Initiative, a program of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and the Canadian Public Health Association argue that the measures included in Bill S-10 are both ineffective and expensive. [continues 463 words]
OTTAWA -- Canadians convicted of crimes abroad have been told they must now undergo security checks by Canada's spy agency before they can be transferred to a prison in this country. The process will delay the transfers for months - possibly even years - regardless of the type of crime committed and the threat the prisoners pose to public safety. Critics suggest the policy was introduced at the request of Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, who does not approve of returning drug dealers to Canada to serve their time. But it has been left to the bureaucrats at the International Transfers office within Correctional Service Canada to pass on the news to prisoners and their families. [continues 587 words]
Protesters Angered by Federal Government's Plan to Appeal B.C. Court Decision Keeping Vancouver Safe-Injection Site Open OTTAWA -- Supporters of British Columbia's safe-injection site erected 868 wooden crosses on Parliament Hill yesterday to protest against the federal government's court bid that would see the site shut down. Each cross represented an overdose that organizers said had occurred in the Insite facility since it opened in 2003. "Those are people that could have died had it not been for a nurse intervening right away," said Nathan Allen, the co-ordinator of a group called Insite for Community Safety. He said his group represented Vancouver's Portland Hotel Society, which helps run Insite, as well as church groups, labour unions, community groups, parent groups and individual citizens. [continues 356 words]
Advocates in B.C. Upset in Light of Health Minister's Decision Last Week to Contest Ruling That Validated Vancouver's Insite Program OTTAWA, VANCOUVER -- Health Minister Tony Clement says his government will not necessarily oppose safe-injection sites for illegal drugs in Quebec even though it will appeal a court decision allowing a similar facility in British Columbia. "It's a situation that we can discuss with the province. There is no decision now, today," Mr. Clement said when asked about the possibility that Quebec will set up a facility like Vancouver's Insite. [continues 631 words]
Arguing Vancouver Clinic Is Not Effective, Health Minister Says He Will Appeal B.C. Supreme Court Ruling That Allows It To Stay Open OTTAWA -- Ottawa moved yesterday to close Canada's only sanctioned safe-injection site, announcing it will appeal a B.C. court ruling that Vancouver's Insite should stay open because reducing the risk of drug overdoses is a vital health service. "In my opinion, supervised injection is not medicine; it does not heal the person addicted to drugs," Health Minister Tony Clement told the House of Commons health committee yesterday. [continues 839 words]
OTTAWA -- The organizers of Vancouver's safe-injection site took retired policemen from Australia and Britain - as well as a retired Vancouver officer - to Ottawa yesterday to plead for an extension of the site's licence. With the June 30 expiry looming, Insite is trying to drum up support for its continued existence as a place in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside where addicts can inject their own illegal drugs in clean, supervised conditions. The three retired policemen told reporters that closing the site would mean more deaths among the most vulnerable members of society - the poor and the uneducated - and would cost the criminal-justice system untold dollars if police were left to deal with overdoses. [continues 563 words]
