OTTAWA

On Parliament Hill, the real work gets done by committees of MPs.

But which committee gets to figure out how to legalize pot, as per Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s most famous campaign promise?

The Justice Committee? The Health Committee? Or perhaps — wait for it — a Joint Committee?

Bad puns aside, making pot legal is not going to happen quickly or without some controversy, partly because government works through these issues by committees.

And while it’s early days yet for the Trudeau administration, there are some hints about next steps.

“Our commitments in the election campaign were clear,” Dominic Leblanc said on Thursday. Leblanc is the government house leader, a cabinet-level position that makes him Trudeau’s right-hand man when it comes to slotting different priorities for the House of Commons to deal with. You’ll be seeing a lot of Leblanc over the next four years.

He said his top priority right now is pushing through Trudeau’s promised income tax cut.

That’ll happen when the House of Commons is summoned for a week-long run in early December. The highlight that week will be the speech from the throne, which should have more details about Trudeau’s pot plans.

In the meantime, Leblanc, a lawyer, had this warning.

“The Criminal Code, in spite of the swearing in of a new government, was not changed. My colleague, the minister of justice, obviously with her provincial counterparts, will want to discuss this.

“So I would urge you to wait and be patient. The commitments we made in the election campaign, including changes like that to the Criminal Code, will be coming, but be coming in a responsible way in co-operation with provinces and other interested stakeholders.”

That’s Parliament-speak for: This is going to take a little while.

As Leblanc said, the new federal justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, has to talk to all of her provincial counterparts. That’ll take time.

And while that’s happening, federal health minister Jane Philpott said she wants to talk to her provincial counterparts.

“Marijuana is very much a health issue,” Philpott said. And yes, there have already been giggles over the ending of the health minister’s last name in this regard.

And at the end of all that, we do indeed come back to committees of MPs. Even a joint committee of MPs would not start work at the earliest until February.

Legalizing pot by next summer would be nearly impossibly fast work. The more likely bet is to see movement on this file in at least a year’s time.

david.akin@sunmedia.ca