Thank you, Mr. Testart. Would the Minister like to respond?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Staff worked very hard on bringing this bill forward. I understand that we were the first territory to introduce legislation, and in fact, we were ahead of some of the provinces. Of course, we looked at what other provinces were doing, and I suppose our legislation somewhat reflects what others were doing, but also our unique circumstances in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Testart mentioned the improvements that committee has suggested and those which we agreed to on the bill. Of course, that's part of the system we have, and I thank them for that. The bill wasn't perfect, it may never be perfect, but it has been improved by that contribution, so I would like to thank committee for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Sebert. Is committee agreed that there are no further comments?
Agreed.
Can we proceed to a clausebyclause review of Bill 6? Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Does committee also agree that we consider the clauses in groups?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we will defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses. There are three schedules, A, B, and C, in the bill. We will go through each of the schedules individually before returning to the clauses of Bill 6, which are found on page 1 of the bill.
Let's turn to page 8, Schedule A, Cannabis Products Act. There are 72 clauses in Schedule A. Clauses 1 to 4. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Clause 5. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that Schedule A to Bill 6 be amended by adding the following after subsection 5(1):
(1.1) Before the Minister designates a person to act as a vendor under subsection (1), the Minister shall ensure that the person meets the prescribed criteria.
(1.2) If a person meets the prescribed criteria, the Minister shall designate that person to act as a vendor unless the Minister provides a reasonable justification for not doing so.
(1.3) The Minister shall not require that, in order for a person to be designated as a vendor under subsection (1), the person must also be designated as a vendor under subsection 34(1) of the Liquor Act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. A motion has been made. The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion represents the work of the committee, and it is one of the motions that committee agreed to bring forward, that was passed at the clausebyclause review, and that the honourable Minister of Justice did not concur with. I am bringing it forward again to reflect the work of committee and to reflect the common policy objectives that the committee agreed were important and that Bill 6 must contain.
This amendment to the bill will allow for the immediate designation of vendors outside of the Liquor Commission system. Granted, regulations will need to be developed to ensure that those vendors have prescribed criteria. Although this does not speak to specific regulations, it is more appropriate that the government address that, should this pass.
The Alberta model of private retail has extensive regulations for vendors that have already been set out. For example, you can't have a criminal record, and you have to have a credible business interest. I believe that the committee developed this because of the concerns we heard from the public. Just to put it into context, even in some communities or some segments of the population who weren't completely sold that legal cannabis would be safer or achieve those public safety objectives, they were so concerned about a lack of economic activity in the Northwest Territories that they saw this as something that could boost their local communities, that could create jobs and create an economic opportunity.
Further, when you look at what this bill is designed to do, it's not going to make the black market disappear overnight. That's unrealistic, and I have heard criticism of these approaches. Even the whole legalization effort started by the federal government, that "you're joking if you think the black market is going to vanish." Of course, it's not going to vanish overnight, Mr. Chair, but it will give us better tools to deal with it than we currently have. Without tools like this that will allow for the wide distribution of cannabis in a legal market on a controlled basis, I fear that we will not effectively disrupt the black market.
One of the examples that stuck with me when we engaged stakeholders in the community of Tuktoyaktuk, one of the town councillors told us that they had recently started bringing flats of beer into the community, and they were able to increase the supply and lower the cost, and that had largely relieved many of the serious problems that they had seen in the community because of abuse of hard liquor. They had changed behaviour by making the supply more accessible. When we asked, "Well, what would you propose to do with cannabis?" they said, "The exact same thing." Open a store. Make it cheap. Make it available. If we do not change the legislation to allow that, we are going to end up in the same situation.
My honourable friend from Tu NedheWiilideh said it better than I ever could, and I really respect the position he's coming from. He's seen it all, as have many others, but where he's coming from is exactly the concern, that we are creating a twotiered system. We are creating regional monopolies through liquor stores that will be run by the Liquor Commission and relying on mail order in communities where people don't have Visas, where the shipping is high, and the cost isn't going to go down. There will be no incentive to switch from bootleggers and drug dealers.
We need to do better, and this motion will allow us to do better. It will bring about private cannabis stores far quicker than the government's current agenda and allow us to disrupt the black market, to put economic opportunities into the communities, and to keep people safe, and that's exactly what the committee wanted to achieve when we agreed on this amendment. I hope that we see the support today, when we vote on it, that we did when we worked together to develop it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Testart. To the motion. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I understand that this motion was developed by committee as a response to the government's stated policy decision to refrain from granting vendors' rights to any vendor other than liquor store vendors for at least two years. The fact that the Minister declined to concur with the amendment demonstrates to me the degree to which the GNWT wants to ensure their authority to implement their policy to see cannabis sold only through liquor stores for at least two years. As I noted yesterday, Mr. Chair, the trenches will be dug after two years, and there will be no getting out.
For me, this begs the question why. As I suggested, again, in my remarks yesterday, I believe the government is determined to reserve cannabis revenue for its own coffers to the greatest extent possible. There is nothing in Bill 6 right now that requires the Minister to give fair consideration to private citizens who want to become legal cannabis vendors. We must simply trust the government when they say that they will consider opening the sales model to private vendors. The committee's motion would ensure that private vendors are given fair consideration right from the start.
We have heard the government say that they don't anticipate cannabis revenues to be all that significant. In fact, in this year's budget address, the Minister of Finance said, "Early estimates indicate that revenues from cannabis for the GNWT will be modest and that there are likely to be some increased expenditure pressures."
Contrast that with the following observation from the chief economist at CIBC World Markets who said, "If businesses are allowed to setup cannabis shops and compete in the same way that other retailers do, Canadians could be buying as much as $10 billion worth of marijuana products a year." By that estimate, the Canadian cannabis market is expected to bring in $1 billion more per year than the $9 billion in beer sales that occur annually in Canada right now. That says a lot. At least one industry analyst predicts that the Canadian cannabis market is more likely to be closer to $20 billion a year in sales.
My point, Mr. Chair, is that by its insistence on selling cannabis through liquor stories, the GNWT is denying NWT retailers who are not already liquor vendors the opportunity to enter this market at the outset, with the opportunity to learn and grow alongside liquor vendors who choose to sell cannabis and to reap a fair share of the profits. Mr. Chair, I will be supporting the committee's motion because it will, not prevent the GNWT from selling cannabis through liquor stores, but it will ensure that other entrepreneurs who meet the criteria and requirements set out in regulations will be given fair consideration in their applications to become cannabis vendors. I believe strongly in the entrepreneurial spirit of this territory and the capabilities of northern businesspeople, and I believe they can rise to meet whatever conditions are set by the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Next, we have Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair the committee developed this motion as a way to address the government's position that they would only grant cannabis vendor licences to liquor store operators for the first two years after legalization. My constituents want to see cannabis stores in communities that don't have liquor stores. The only way to make sure this happens is to put a requirement in the act that obligates the Minister to consider all eligible vendor applications, not just those from liquor store operations. That's what this motion would do. It gives the Minister the discretion to not approve an application from someone who is not qualified or who does not meet the established criteria, but it prevents the government from giving a monopoly to liquor stores.
A lot has been said about whether the Minister will have to develop the criteria now or in six months or in two years. This is a red herring. The government will develop the regulations as soon as possible if they have to. What matters is, once legalization takes place, without committee's motion, the government can develop the regulations, but they'll have absolutely no obligation to consider applications from anyone other than the liquor store owners.
Mr. Chair, in my riding that I represent, Acho Dene First Nations has already sent a letter to the government and asked to put a store in their community. Why should they, you ask? They're two and a half hours away from BC. If we're going to go with this model, what the government's going to do, they're not going to mail order. They're not going to drive to Fort Simpson. They're going to drive to BC. They're going to access the cannabis when they want to. The community wants to have this opportunity to put it in their community, so the revenue stays in the north. Unfortunately, if we continue this action that the government has proposed in this bill, we're not going to see that.
The Minister of Justice talks about online. Great, we're going to have online. Well you know what? If they're going to go online, and they have access the credit cards or the ability to do online, they're not going to go to the liquor store in Hay River or Fort Simpson, or the Liquor Commission, wherever that is going to go based out of. They are going to go online down south. So we're going to not only miss the taxation and the revenue, it's going to go down south. We see that right now with opportunities to buy stuff online. You can do it now. So without having this opportunity, we're missing that.
This here is coming from the communities. It's not my decision, because I'm not in the business. I'm here to represent the people from Nahendeh, and this is what they've asked. Mr. Chair, they want business opportunities that could come with cannabis stores. They want to be given a chance. Right now, in the Deh Cho, or in Nahendeh, there's limited opportunity. We don't have the opportunities that Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik, Yellowknife have. The economy is not great. Here was an opportunity to, one, develop a business; and two, put people to work.
It's unfortunate some people on Cabinet side don't understand that. Some don't, some laugh about it, and it irritates me. Some people over there are serious about it, they understand that, they've been in the small communities, but it's about putting people to work, and if we don't do that, I know you like income support, well, I'd love to see you guys live on it. People want that opportunity to work, and I think this is an opportunity to do that. For that reason, I'm supporting this motion and calling on my colleagues who worked with me to develop it to do the same. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Next, we have Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will be supporting committee's motion in this area. I have my reasons for supporting it: it is to be able to have a safe supply of cannabis to all residents of the Northwest Territories, not to only some residents of the Northwest Territories. I can assure Cabinet that, if this motion is not passed, you will be supporting the illegal trade of marijuana in small communities. There is no reason in the world, there's no reason in the world for an individual to fly all the way to a liquor store to be able to buy, and they can't even pick up marijuana for their friends, because of the limit that is there. So everybody has to fly in to a community to get their own. What is going to be the option? The option is going to be to either buy it online or buy illegally. So for the people who don't have Visas out there, and I've talked many times, when you have 40 per cent employment rates, you don't have many Visas flying around in the community, Mr. Chair, and if they were to get a Visa, if they were to be lucky enough to have a job and get a Visa and want to smoke legal marijuana, they will buy it from somewhere else. They'll order it places where they're not selling it for $10 a gram, because that's what the market, that's what the government sets the price at, and everybody else is going to set the price at the market rate. The illegal drug dealers are going to have a better sense of what the market is than the government.
We have to let the people start up vendors in the communities so they could stay within the market and they could provide legal pot to people, safe pot to people. There's a feeling that there are going to be stores, pot stores popping up all over the community. That ain't gonna happen. There's not enough business for that. Not going to happen. And if it does, at least they'll be paying taxes back to the government coffers instead of putting illegal money in their pocket.
If we approve what the government is saying, we are supporting the illegal trade of pot. There's no question about it. I think everybody knows that, but for some reason or another people are bound to the fact that they think that there's going to be pot stores popping up all over, and everybody's going to start smoking marijuana. That's not necessarily going to happen. That ain't gonna happen. There's a reason that it's being restricted to only certain communities; there's a reason that it's only going in to liquor stores. If it's not what the honourable colleague from Yellowknife North said, that the government wants to keep all of the tax dollars for themselves, then it must be what? I just can't understand, unless the other reason is a lack of understanding of what the lay of the land is as far as this product goes in the Northwest Territories. It is unbelievable. It ain't gonna happen. It we don't pass this committee, then we are supporting the illegal trade of marijuana. In the whole North, you will hear that, and that's how it's going to be set up. Everybody's going to know that this government is passing a bill that supports the illegal trade of marijuana by restricting it to only certain communities and leaving the small communities, the 27 other communities that we went out and heard from, that said that this is what we want to see. Mr. Chairman, I request a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Next on the list, we have Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't like this motion. I find it too prescriptive, but I am in support of it because our alternative is subservience to what I believe is a wrong-headed policy position for all of the reasons mentioned by Mr. Beaulieu and Mr. Vanthuyne, and I have nothing further to say. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next on the list we have Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do not support this motion because the communities that I represent did not explicitly tell me to take this position. As I stated in the outset, speaking on this Bill 6, is people want a level of control. They want a level of control or government has control, and therefore position the communities to have control. I disagree with the comments that were made earlier. We can't really predict and crystal-ball this and place hypothetical situations over our heads and predict what may happen. We don't know that, but I do know that I support Bill 6 because it's predicated on the idea of stomping out the illegal drug trade. That's the initial intention and spirit of Bill 6. I understand the federal government is proposing this legal framework because, in the end, they have primacy in terms of enforcing the control and sales of marijuana and cannabis, and, therefore, I don't support this motion. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Next on the list, we have Mr. Sebert.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of concerns about the proposed motion, and, if it fails, there may be an opportunity to accomplish its objectives without the negatives associated with the particular language. We do understand the motivation to see other private retail options to be open sooner rather than later. I think we need to be very careful not to suggest that there's a huge market waiting to be captured with lucrative returns to be had. The prices must be set in a way that can displace the illegal market.
Everyone should appreciate that it is going to be a challenging operating environment for legitimate enterprises. Unlike organized crime and other existing dealers, legitimate businesses must pay staff, payroll, income and property taxes, provide training, pay insurance, pay WSCC premiums, get business licences, comply with zoning requirements, pay rent and utilities. Cannabis retailers will also have to compete with legitimate mail-order and online options that may indeed turn out to be the preferred retail option of most consumers. Convenience and, frankly, anonymity are attractive features of mail order.
All cannabis retailers in the NWT will also have to buy their products through the Liquor Commission, acting as the wholesaler, to ensure that there is a safe, well-regulated, and approved supply. To meet our objectives, this has to be a regulated product that is treated differently than other products commonly available through many retail channels. I would stress again that the majority of respondents to the GNWT's extensive public engagement expressed a preference for the liquor store model to be used in retail for cannabis. As I mentioned earlier when I was quoting the figures, it was not a huge majority by any means, but that seemed to be the preferred option. I still think this makes sense, to provide a safe and professional retail option on legalization day and to provide for an expanded marketplace shortly thereafter.
To that point, I would emphasize that the bill already provides for other options, and, if this motion does not pass and another is brought, we would make that explicitly clear and we would establish full and fair criteria that any potential cannabis retailer would have to plan for. What is being proposed through this motion as written is the elimination of ministerial discretion to consider important questions about how, when, and where these additional retail options would proceed. Approval of cannabis stores should not be a mere rubber-stamp, bureaucratic formality. This is an important concern. Ministerial discretion is always subject to review for abuse of discretion, but, where broad policy issues require careful consideration, Ministers must be free to act based on the best interests of the residents they serve and on the conceptions of the public good. This is how the system is supposed to work.
As noted above, we do support prescribing criteria for cannabis stores, which should include, to list but a few, their location; where are the new stores proposed to be established; what they can sell; should they be able to sell toys, candy, cannabis; does the community support the addition of new stores; what are the security requirements for the new store for staff, customers, and security of the stock; what are the inspection requirements for the new store; what should the hours of operation for the stores be; what should the training requirements for staff be. These questions quickly come to mind. Undoubtedly, there are many other considerations that should be applied, and it is our intention to do the work necessary and as quickly as possible to address those considerations.
Residents want cannabis stores to be well regulated, with matters related to health and safety and community support to be fully considered. I fear that this motion would undo the key element of having opportunity for the public interest to be carefully considered with each application for a new store. The explicit "unless the Minister provides a reasonable justification requirement," when read together with the rest of the provisions, would not preserve the necessary ability of the Minster to fully exercise his discretion in the public interest. At least, it is far from clear that it would.
This language is not used in any other legislation that I am aware of and certainly not anywhere in territorial legislation, or the legislation of other Canadian jurisdictions. It would be unfortunate, for example, if the Minister was forced to designate a vendor over the legitimate concerns of the community.
Mr. Chairperson, our thinking has evolved. We accept the objectives of the motion but not the constraint placed upon Ministerial discretion. If this motion does not pass, we will support an alternative version that achieves the same ends while recognizing Canadian principles of executive government.
To conclude, when we went out and were seeking the views of the public, there were many different options that the public looked at and the liquor store model seemed to receive significant support. Cabinet will be voting against this motion, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Sebert. Next we have Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a confession that I want to start with. At first, I supported the liquor retail model, but I changed my mind based on the input that we've heard. I'm going to come at this very differently than some of my colleagues, but I do agree and support the work of the committee on this. Although I did hear that there were some individuals who supported or wanted private retail stores, I do think that the claims of economic opportunities are probably greater than they are really going to turn out to be, especially around retail. There may be some opportunities around production, but I am worried about raising unrealistic expectations around economic opportunities, particularly with regard to retail.
I want to go and just look at what is in the existing bill. The only conditions that are being placed on who can become a vendor are that you can't be a minor, you can only sell cannabis that is authorized by the federal government, you have to keep records, there may be some additional things required by regulation, and you probably have to enter an agreement with the Minister.
Those were the only conditions in the existing bill, but the Minister may designate a person to act as a vendor in a particular community. That's total and unfettered discretion. The Minister can decide whoever can become a vendor, total and unfettered discretion, and I don't think that's appropriate. What we are left with is trying to deal with a policy decision through a legal amendment, and it is kind of a difficult position to be put in.
I want to point out that the amendment that we are talking about here, there's nothing in this amendment that prevents sale of cannabis through the liquor retail system. The government can continue to do that. If that's what the policy direction is, this amendment will still allow that to happen. What it would require is that the government actually develop a set of regulations, to set out in a clear and transparent manner what the prescribed criteria are. It would force the government's hand to actually set those out in a clear and transparent fashion, set up a process for doing that, and presumably, it would be a public process where the development of those regulations would take place. Anybody who meets those prescribed conditions would get a licence to sell. They could be the sorts of things that the Minister of Justice talks about, whether it's security or lack of a criminal record or whatever. All of those things could be laid out in a clear and transparent fashion, and I think that's what this government should be doing right now.
As I said, I come at this a lot differently. I am very concerned about the Minister having total and unfettered discretion, and that's what this is about. It's about ministerial authority and discretion. To me, that is a key issue here, and I'm not prepared to give the Minister that much authority over something that's brand new. Absolutely not. I'm going to be voting in favour of this. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Next on our list, we have Mr. McNeely.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think we said right from the start that, as we proceed forward in this very unknown market, we're probably not going to get it right. Right now, I think we can all agree in this room here that cannabis is not being sold here. It's being brought in to all 33 communities from other sources outside, south of the 60th parallel, or west or east or north, but there is no supply point here.
Assuming that we didn't have the system of alcohol sales, would we have designated these six communities as cannabis suppliers? Probably not. It's the system that we have and the tools that we have on delivering programs and services.
Having said that, I can't see myself, in consultation with some people in my region and listening to them as well, supporting this motion. As much as I respect everybody's opinion, I hope everybody would respect mine. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McNeely. Mr. Nakimayak.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't be long. Earlier, in the opening comments, I mentioned that I wouldn't support this, and I think all of us who sit here, our time up in this Assembly is done in 2019. I think we need to look beyond that.
Earlier, I mentioned that, if the government is in control, it is something that could be controlled by the government and the government can take responsibility for. If we look at something like this that is being proposed, it would become the wild, wild west, and I don't think that's the right way to go. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Nakimayak. To the motion.
Question.
The Member for Kam Lake, the Member for Tu NedheWiilideh, the Member for Nahendeh, the Member for Frame Lake, the Member for Yellowknife Centre, the Member for Hay River North, the Member for Yellowknife North.
All those opposed?
The Member for Deh Cho, the Member for Nunakput, the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, the Member for Range Lake, the Member for Great Slave, the Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, the Member for Hay River South, the Member for Thebacha, the Member for Sahtu.
All those abstaining, please rise. The results of the recorded vote: seven in favour, nine opposed, zero abstentions.
Defeated
Clause 5. Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Chair, I move that Schedule A to Bill 6 be amended by deleting subsection 5(1) and substituting the following:
(1) The Minister shall, where the Minister considers it to be in the public interest, designate a person to act as a vendor in a particular community for the operation of a cannabis store and the sale of cannabis in that community.
(1.1) The Minister shall, within six months after the coming into force of this subsection, recommend that the Commissioner make regulations prescribing criteria to guide the Minister in considering whether the designation of a person as a vendor is in the public interest.
(1.2) The criteria referred to in subsection (1.1) must not establish a condition that a person first be designated as a vendor under subsection 34(1) of the Liquor Act in order to be designated as a vendor under subsection (1).
(1.3) Notwithstanding subsection (1.1), the Minister may designate a vendor before the regulations referred to in subsection (1.1) have been made.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. The motion has been made. The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Simpson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this motion is what some would call a compromise, what some would call better than nothing, and what some may call nothing more than a smokescreen.
Many Members of this House and many members of the public have expressed a desire for private sales of cannabis and the opportunity to sell cannabis in all communities in the NWT. However, as the bill is written, it gives the Minister of Finance broad discretion, seemingly the broadest discretion available under the law, as to who he designates as a cannabis vendor, and this government has made it clear that it wishes to limit cannabis sales to liquor stores.
Unlike the motion that just failed, this one would not force the Minister's hand, and that is why some may consider this motion a farce. What this motion would do, if successful, is require the government to make regulations prescribing criteria to guide the Minister when considering whether it is in the public interest to designate a person as a vendor.
This does little to fetter the Minister's discretion as it will be the department that develops the regulations, but it at least provides clarity to entrepreneurs so they know what criteria their applications will be based on, and it allows for much more transparent decision-making process. The motion also ensures that one of those criteria will not be that a cannabis vendor must already be a liquor vendor, which addresses the concern raised by some that such a regulation would be made, and it mirrored the provision in the motion that just failed.
The motion states that the criteria must be developed within six months. If this motion is successful, I will move another one later that would see that six-month provision come into force on assent, meaning tomorrow, in all likelihood. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this motion was actually floated by the government earlier this week, and, quite frankly, it was "a compromise alternative to the committee's motion that was just defeated."
Mr. Chair, this is not a compromise, in my mind. This is a tactic by the government designed to undermine the work of the standing committees. As we have just seen by the defeat of the previous motion, the tactic appears to have worked. I want to be perfectly clear about the effect of this motion, Mr. Chair. The motion requires the Minister to bring in regulations within six months "prescribing criteria to guide the Minister in considering whether the designation of a person as a vendor is in the public interest."
The government seems to have convinced some Members that this six-month timeline is a compromise over the two-year period the government first said it would adhere to when Bill 6 was introduced. What was apparently not made clear was that, while the committee's motion would have obligated the Minister to give fair consideration to all vendor applications that meet the prescribed criteria, this motion gives the Minister full discretion in determining whether or not a vendor designation is in the public interest. If the Minister determines that it is in the public interest only to designate liquor store vendors to sell cannabis, and that it is not in the public interest to designate private vendors, then, even with prescribed criteria in place within six months, there is still no obligation on the GNWT to open up the sales of cannabis beyond liquor stores. A tactic, Mr. Chair, not a compromise.
I will not be supporting this motion, which makes little meaningful improvement over the original subsection in Bill 6. Again, I am deeply disappointed that it does not have the effect of bringing an end to the government's plan to sell cannabis only through liquor stores at the outset of legalization, and I intend to work hard to push this government to move in that direction as quickly as possible. Those are my comments. I will not be in support. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Next, we have Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the government is calling this motion a compromise because they would be required to develop regulations in six months. This isn't a compromise. It is a bait and switch. This government is trying to bamboozle Members so that they don't really see what is going on. What is really going on is that this government's motion leaves all the power in the hands of the Minister to grant vendor licences to liquor stores only. That's the part that they don't want committee to change. I can't say it any plainer than that.
Six months, one year, two years, it doesn't matter when the government makes regulations because their motion says they will use the regs to "decide what is in the public interest." They have already done that. They think it is in the public interest to have cannabis sold only in liquor stores, but what they know is that this is the government's interest because almost all of the revenue will come to the government. Government may put regulations in place, but they don't have any obligation to use them.
I cannot support this motion because it gives too much discretion to the Minister to implement the sale model that is not consistent with what my constituents want, and, at the end of the day, that's what matters to me. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next, we have Mr. Testart. Oh, sorry, Mr. Thompson. Next, we have Mr. Testart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's telling when the mover of this motion has to characterize it in debate as a smokescreen in addition to other things. To address the strong feelings committee members are going to have says something about the nature of this compromise, quite frankly, the preoccupation with the Minister in debate over the last motion that failed, with Ministerial control and Ministerial discretion being unduly fettered.
Committees don't propose motions half-baked. We consult with experts. In this case, we consulted with a legal expert. The legal opinion we received is that it is well within the boundaries of Canadian constitutional law to apply reasonable limitations on Ministerial discretion. This reverses that, and that seems to be the huge sticking point. I don't find comfort to see that a proposed two years has been reduced to six months. I think that's an attractive number for those of us who have been pushing the government to bring forward some sort of privatized rules sooner, but they could make that political commitment regardless of what was written in this legislation. I would like to think that they recognized the work that the standing committee did in advocating for this point and advocating for the need for regulations for private business and would do so anyway.
I'm not convinced that this is necessary. I'm not convinced that the wording of this, which seems to have taken what the committee's initial intention was and reworded it to protect the Minister's unilateral right, is reflective of what ought to be a process that reflects the need for privatization and respects the rights of Northerners to take risks. This is a paternalistic attitude, that we need government monopolies controlling our industries, we need to squeeze all the revenue out of legal cannabis into public coffers, and that, no, we're not going to let people take risks and fail because they will blame us at the end of the day.
That is not how entrepreneurs work. They are willing to take the risks, and they are willing to go out and do the research and get prepared for this. Many of them have. In our consultations, we heard from the NWT chamber which represents the entire territory, business community, the entire territory, and, the Chamber of Commerce of Yellowknife, they have been approached by people who want these opportunities, and this government is saying, "No, thanks. We'll keep all the revenues for ourselves." This motion is not going to change that, as much as they're trying to convince us that it will.
I again can't understand why we can't embrace our entrepreneurs, why we can't let them take the lead on cannabis. Why can't we give them the opportunity when our Liquor Commission system is far from perfect and there seems to be no willingness on the part of this government so far to really look into that? Look at the state of the Yellowknife Brew Pub, or NWT Brewing Company. It took them years to start making alcohol and working with the government to get them there. Are we really to believe in six months this government will be in a position to let someone open a cannabis store? I think not. I think the government has played its hand in defeating the previous motion and putting this one in place, which speaks to the public interest.
Mr. Chair, the plebiscite components of this legislation allow the public interest to be met through a plebiscite process that allows communities to control what goes on in their communities. The Minister doesn't need to decide for communities. The plebiscite exists. The bill has been amended to extend the window for plebiscites to ensure that proper notice is given. The Minister doesn't need to decide on behalf of communities, and that's what this is ensuring. The Minister needs to be in a position to accept that there will be people who will be qualified to sell cannabis as private retailers and should be allowed to do so. Obviously, that's not going to be the case.
It's a roundabout way of saying I won't be supporting this motion. Mr. Chair, at the appropriate time, I would like a recorded vote. Thank you.
