Article content continued

Those six months have now expired, but MacKay’s office told the Citizen this week the minister has not rejected the idea.

“Our government is still considering changes to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) aimed at creating a new ticketing proposal for possession of small quantities of cannabis,” said a statement issued by his office.

“We do not support making access to illegal drugs easier. To be clear, any proposed changes would not decriminalize or legalize cannabis possession in Canada whatsoever, but support law enforcement’s efforts to efficiently deal with possession of these illicit drugs.”

Clive Weighill, president of CACP, said in an interview that his group is looking for ways to “streamline policing costs.”

“I think the world has really changed on this,” said Weighill, who is Saskatoon’s chief of police. “I think a lot of the judges right now are loath to give someone a criminal record because the police find him in possession of a couple of joints.”

The current law, he said, puts police officers “in a very tough situation” on how to exercise their discretion.

“If you stop a vehicle and one person has a couple of joints in their pocket and the other person has open liquor, you give the person with open liquor a ticket. And yet what do you do with the person with the two joints? Do you charge them criminally? Do you let them off?”

Conservative senator Vern White, a former Ottawa chief of police, said he fully supports the proposed change.

“Don’t get me wrong. If it is a guy with 15 joints in his pocket in a high school parking lot, I’m going to charge him criminally.”

“But if we’re talking about a guy with a couple of joints or a joint, do we really want to bring them through the criminal process?”

White said tickets would serve as a deterrent.

The Liberals would legalize marijuana through a system in which sales are regulated. Trudeau says this would take pot out of the hands of organized crime and make it harder for kids to obtain.