UPDATE: The Trudeau government’s Bill C-45 has been officially approved in principle by the Senate Thursday evening with a vote of 44-29.
The bill will legalize recreational marijuana across Canada, a promise made by the Prime Minister before assuming office in 2015.
Trudeau reminded senators that legalization was a huge part of why his government was elected and that it would be wise not to thwart the will of the Canadian people and the government they elected.
Had the bill been defeated, the government would have had to start again in the House of Commons with new legislation, but as a result of tonight’s vote, Canada is on track for legalization by the summer.Upper house could throw wrench in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan for full legalization by summer.
The government’s cannabis bill faces outright defeat in the Senate today if it can’t secure enough support from members of the Red Chamber.
According to an agreed timetable, senators will hold a vote at second reading of the bill today. If the opposition Tories cobble together enough votes to defeat C-45, the legislation would be effectively dead — meaning the government would have to restart the entire legislative process in the House.
If that happens, a summer timeline for legalization becomes much less likely.
Most Independent and Liberal senators generally support the bill, and together they hold 54 of the chamber’s 93 occupied seats. But that doesn’t guarantee that all of those members will vote together as a block or be present when the vote is recorded.
New senators have been appointed as Independents — leaving the Liberal government with no mechanism to whip votes or force them to attend sittings in the chamber.
Moreover, two Senate committees are on the road: members of the agriculture committee are meeting with stakeholders in Calgary, while the Aboriginal peoples committee is in Winnipeg. That means as many as 20 senators — most of them Independent — will be out of the mix today when a vote is held. Others, like Independent Quebec Sen. Jacques Demers, are not expected to be in attendance because of illness.
The 33 Conservative senators generally vote in lockstep on government legislation, since they all still sit as members of a national party caucus.
Government sources, speaking on background, suggest they have enough support from Independent senators to win the vote. But the slim margin is ringing alarm bells on the government side, as only a few absences could derail a key government policy.
When asked if the government has a plan B ready in the event the bill is defeated, a spokesperson for Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the minister still expects the legislation to face a final vote in the Senate on or before June 7, a timeline the Senate leadership agreed to last month.
“The minister has been following the Senate’s debate on C-45 since it came to that place last November. She looks forward to appearing before the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs as part of the ‘pre-study’ of certain aspects of the legislation,” the spokesperson said.
Conservative senators have delivered scathing condemnations of the legislation that will legalize the recreational use of cannabis in this country.
Tory senators say they worry the legislation will endanger youth, increase smoking rates, complicate the work of police officers, lead to a backlog of court cases for possession offences and do little to curb black market sales of the drug.
“Driven by a self-imposed, artificial political deadline of implementation by this summer, the Trudeau government has hastily assembled Bill C-45 and its companion impaired driving legislation, Bill C-46,” Conservative Saskatchewan Sen. Denise Batters said in a speech to the chamber on Tuesday.
“Both bills are shoddily constructed and raise a myriad of unanswered questions that will lead to unintended and devastating consequences.
UPDATE: The Trudeau government’s Bill C-45 has been officially approved in principle by the Senate Thursday evening with a vote of 44-29.
The bill will legalize recreational marijuana across Canada, a promise made by the Prime Minister before assuming office in 2015.
Trudeau reminded senators that legalization was a huge part of why his government was elected and that it would be wise not to thwart the will of the Canadian people and the government they elected.
Had the bill been defeated, the government would have had to start again in the House of Commons with new legislation, but as a result of tonight’s vote, Canada is on track for legalization by the summer.Upper house could throw wrench in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan for full legalization by summer.
The government’s cannabis bill faces outright defeat in the Senate today if it can’t secure enough support from members of the Red Chamber.
According to an agreed timetable, senators will hold a vote at second reading of the bill today. If the opposition Tories cobble together enough votes to defeat C-45, the legislation would be effectively dead — meaning the government would have to restart the entire legislative process in the House.
If that happens, a summer timeline for legalization becomes much less likely.
Most Independent and Liberal senators generally support the bill, and together they hold 54 of the chamber’s 93 occupied seats. But that doesn’t guarantee that all of those members will vote together as a block or be present when the vote is recorded.
New senators have been appointed as Independents — leaving the Liberal government with no mechanism to whip votes or force them to attend sittings in the chamber.
Moreover, two Senate committees are on the road: members of the agriculture committee are meeting with stakeholders in Calgary, while the Aboriginal peoples committee is in Winnipeg. That means as many as 20 senators — most of them Independent — will be out of the mix today when a vote is held. Others, like Independent Quebec Sen. Jacques Demers, are not expected to be in attendance because of illness.
The 33 Conservative senators generally vote in lockstep on government legislation, since they all still sit as members of a national party caucus.
Government sources, speaking on background, suggest they have enough support from Independent senators to win the vote. But the slim margin is ringing alarm bells on the government side, as only a few absences could derail a key government policy.
When asked if the government has a plan B ready in the event the bill is defeated, a spokesperson for Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the minister still expects the legislation to face a final vote in the Senate on or before June 7, a timeline the Senate leadership agreed to last month.
“The minister has been following the Senate’s debate on C-45 since it came to that place last November. She looks forward to appearing before the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs as part of the ‘pre-study’ of certain aspects of the legislation,” the spokesperson said.
Scathing criticism
Conservative senators have delivered scathing condemnations of the legislation that will legalize the recreational use of cannabis in this country.
Tory senators say they worry the legislation will endanger youth, increase smoking rates, complicate the work of police officers, lead to a backlog of court cases for possession offences and do little to curb black market sales of the drug.
“Driven by a self-imposed, artificial political deadline of implementation by this summer, the Trudeau government has hastily assembled Bill C-45 and its companion impaired driving legislation, Bill C-46,” Conservative Saskatchewan Sen. Denise Batters said in a speech to the chamber on Tuesday.
“Both bills are shoddily constructed and raise a myriad of unanswered questions that will lead to unintended and devastating consequences.
credit:420intel.com
