Decriminalization of Cannabis in Canada- Feature Story
Marc Emery was sent to 33 prisons and jails in Canada, and six in the United States. He was given a five-year sentence in a US federal prison, arrested and charged in Montreal, arrested at Pearson International Airport, raided and convicted.
Jason Brunette was arrested on his way to work and charged for a minor offence. He lost $2000 to a private company for a pardon because it hadn’t been seven years since his conviction. His criminal record kept him from about 40 or so prospective job interviews. After years of unemployment he attempted to fake a Criminal Record Check document to satisfy a new employer, got caught, and was charged with uttering a forged document. All of this for a substance that is now legal nationwide.
Cannabis was legalized in Canada by the federal government on Oct. 17 of this year, and with it has followed a flurry of controversy. The Liberal government canned the section of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), prohibiting the possession of small amounts of cannabis, up to 30 grams, replacing it with Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act. However, advocates for cannabis amnesty argue that the plan to legalize the substance never included the decriminalization of it, and that it does not amend the historical injustices of cannabis prohibition.
More than 15,000 people have been charged with possession of marijuana and more than 2,000 have been convicted, since the Trudeau government committed to legalizing and regulating marijuana in 2015– joining close to 500,000 Canadians with marijuana convictions on their criminal record, according to articles in the Guardian and National Post.
According to a report made by the Department of Justice Canada, fifty-eight percent of Canadian police-reported Controlled Drugs and Substances Act offences in 2016 were cannabis-related. Not to mention, the majority of charges, 76 percent, were for possession.
Critics of the legalization of cannabis have argued that since the substance has been legalized there has only been more laws created to regulate it than there were before.
The Cannabis Act proposes approximately 45 new criminal offences, ranging from public possession of more than 30 grams to unauthorized promotion.
Cannabis consultant, activist and Peace Officer of the Marijuana Party, John Akpata, stated in an interview that “there is going to be all sorts of enforcement, and fines, and fees, and penalties that the public did not see coming...They are still throwing criminal charges at people for stuff that the public does not want criminalized at all, like possession of more than an oz or driving with it in your car or growing more than four plants.”
Many Canadians believe that the route that the Liberal government has taken to legalize and regulate cannabis was unnecessarily complex. Criminology Professor at the University of Ottawa and Canadian legislative consultant, Eugene Oscapella, stated “they could have just removed cannabis from the schedule of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act... and let the provinces impose provincial restrictions on it that way… what you really want to do is make sure there is no record kept of any indication that a person was charged or convicted of simple possession of marijuana, that’s an expungement of the record.”
Until now, simple possession of marijuana has been punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and six months in jail.
So far, the government has announced that they will be implementing legislation in the new year to ensure that any Canadian with a criminal record for simple possession of up to 30 grams of cannabis will receive a record pardon and the fee and waiting period for Canadians seeking a pardon will be waived.
Liberal MP of Beaches—East York district of Toronto, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, explained the difference between a record suspension/ pardon and expungement. “With respect to travel… where anyone has previously had a charge or record; that information oftentimes shows up in a police database and is oftentimes shared with American authorities, including at the border, so that could still potentially pose an issue for Canadians with past charges and records traveling to the United states... An expungement would completely erase the record in a way that the pardon does not.”
Information technology consultant, graphic designer, and father, Jason Brunette, 44, of Sudbury Ontario, can personally attest to the burden of a criminal record for simple possession of cannabis. Brunette has been arrested twice and convicted once, for cannabis possession; four years ago, Brunette was caught with just a little under an oz of cannabis in his car. He was held for eight hours, interrogated, and finally released on a simple possession charge. Brunette was facing two months in prison for possession, due to the Conservative Harper government’s exponential increase of mandatory-minimum sentences. “I agreed to having a criminal record for cannabis possession… So, I can’t leave the country, I can’t go to America and I was never able to find work, job hunting was near impossible with a criminal record in the IT industry. They require a clean record in most places.” said Brunette. Eventually, Brunette decided to fake a CPIC document to satisfy a new employer, and was charged with uttering a forged document, although the charges were dropped. “if you are a parent you have to make a certain kind of income... It was humiliating and embarrassing. My name was searchable on the internet, the newspaper article is now forever easily found… So now I’m looked at as a criminal or a drug addict, when I’m not I’m just a regular person.”
Many cannabis activists believe that the original prohibition of cannabis was always an immoral law that unjustly punished millions of otherwise law-abiding Canadians based on faulty premises that the drug was inherently dangerous, and that these people deserve a formal apology. “So, the government has to apologize and acknowledge that the cannabis laws then and right now are rooted in bigotry and scapegoating” stated Marc Scott Emery, a Canadian cannabis rights activist, entrepreneur, politician and ‘cannabis prohibition victim’, in an interview via Twitter.
A number of activists also believe that marginalized Canadians are disproportionately burdened by criminal records for cannabis possession. According to John Akpata, “The laws were unequally applied, we are aware that Black people receive three times the fines, fees, penalties and criminal charges of their population represented in the public and First Nations people receive five times the criminality based on the population, whereas white people use cannabis at the same rates as black people and First Nations people.”
One of the primary aims of the new Cannabis Act outlined by the federal government is ‘to keep profits out of the pockets of criminals’, some critics argue that that it’s true aim is to keep cannabis profits in the pockets of the government and large corporations. Prof Oscapella noted that “If you’ve been arguing for 30 years that we’ve got to get tough on drugs... It’s kind of hard to turn around and say ‘I’ve changed my mind’, it’s politically embarrassing to that, you don’t see that happen that often. It has happened in a few cases most notably when politicians assume that they can profit from getting involved in the marijuana industry.”
When asked if he believes that the government should issue a formal apology to the cannabis community and those individuals who have been criminalized for cannabis possession, Liberal MP, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith stated “There have been lots of bad laws on the books for the course of Canada’s history, I do not know that we need to apologize for each one.... The true historical injustice that is more worthy of consideration of an apology is the fact that the law was applied in an unequal fashion.”
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