Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am overjoyed that we are finally talking about cannabis regulation in this House, and I would like to ask the Minister of Justice: given what he has rolled out here, we have 12 months to put in place legislation in order to meet the deadline that has been established by Ottawa's proposed cannabis act, which gives us seven months to develop legislation after the consultation period. Can the Minister assure this House that cannabis legislation and regulation will be in place by the time legalization takes place nationally? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
That is our plan. However, we will have to work very hard on this together. As I mentioned, we will be going out to people to get their responses and their ideas with respect to this very complex issue. We do realize timelines are short. The federal government is going to be plowing ahead next July 1st, whether we're ready or not.
I hope, on this consultation process, that minutes will be taken when these public hearings are had. The Minister knows that this work has been ongoing on the departmental level. There's nothing to show in the form of documentation, so what has been done to date on developing this legislation on working with the federal government to understand the implications? Other provinces have indicated some of the regulatory measures they want to bring in place. What do we have in the hopper that is informing this survey or this consultation period?
Mr. Speaker, when the federal government made its announcement on April 13th, it caught all of the other jurisdictions by surprise. Admittedly, it was a commitment of the Liberal government to proceed with changes; however, the nature of these changes, there was very little discussion between Ministers or Departments of Justice.
We do realize that it is going to be very difficult to get through this and have proper legislation in place. We are expecting that there will be very many comments and concerns raised in the public engagement portion and as the bill, the ultimate bill, works its way through this House. I am sure we will have the cooperation of the Members opposite to move this ahead quickly, and, hopefully, we will have legislation in place on July 1st. As I mentioned earlier, if we don't, however, the federal government's legislation will proceed in any case. They are not going to wait for us.
That's exactly the point, is that they're not going to wait so we need to be prepared. I question, you know, how surprising this development was. It has been in the federal Liberal Government's platform. I'd like to ask the Minister how many FTP meetings have they had around this issue and how many internal meetings have we had that have been informed by those FTP meetings?
Yes, this was a long-term Liberal commitment, but I am not certain that they have kept every one of their promises. In any case, there has not been a specific federal-provincial-territorial meeting with respect to this matter, and officials have been meeting and discussing this. Those discussions will be ongoing.
We are particularly interested in what other jurisdictions are doing. They have more resources than we do. I have heard that several of the jurisdictions may be more advanced than we are in this. However, we are intending and hoping to get this legislation in place by July 1, 2018, when the federal cannabis act comes into force. Again, it's going to put considerable demands on staff both at Department of Justice, other Members of this House, and I am looking forward to working together with all of you to conclude the studies, the public engagement, and getting the bill, our ultimate bill, through this House. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you to the Minister for that response, and I look forward to working with the honourable Minister on this issue as well. Can the Minister explain how he thinks that work is going to roll out?
This is a complex issue. It deals with regulation. It deals with taxation. It deals with health. It has significant budgetary concerns, both in generating revenue and in paying for public awareness programs. It might require amendments to territorial legislation regarding criminal matters. Is the Minister willing to accept a joint working group or a joint committee in order to properly shepherd this work? It is a lot of work. We are all willing to help out. Will he do that so we can all be part of this solution and work on this public engagement and legislation together? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Mr. Speaker, I will be working with other members of Cabinet with respect to this matter, and I'm sure that, once this matter reaches the status of the bill, we will have a lively discussion in this House. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
