Sen. Peter Harder, government representative in the Senate, left, speaks with Sen. Larry Smith, leader of the opposition in the Senate, before a vote on Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act, in the Senate chamber on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, March 22, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

The Senate has passed the Liberal government’s cannabis legalization bill at third reading, and it wasn’t even close.

Bill C-45 cleared the chamber with ease, passing 56 to 30 with one abstention. Tory senators voted en bloc against the bill, while Independents and Senate Liberals voted for it.

Liberal Sen. Anne Cools, who had spoken out against legalization in the Senate this week, abstained.

Three newly appointed senators cast their votes in favour, outraging Conservative senators. Independent Sens. Donna Dasko and Pierre Dalphond were sworn in Thursday afternoon, just hours before the vote, and Independent Sen. Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia was sworn in just a few days before.

Meanwhile, two Conservative senators – Linda Frum and Nicole Eaton – did not appear for the vote. CBC News reported earlier Thursday they had disclosed financial interests related to the cannabis industry, despite being opposed to legalization.

Frum declared in a statement tabled in January that she holds a “commercial interest in a property that will be leased for the purposes of selling recreational cannabis” once recreational use of the drug is legal and Bill C-45 becomes law. Eaton also declared a private interest “due to an impending investment in the cannabis industry” in May.

Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos said slammed Trudeau-appointed senators as “Government senators” for collectively voting to pass the legislation.

“We saw today on third reading, each and every one of them – including those that expressed such deep reservations throughout the debates, committee work – a lot of them had speeches condemning this bill even more vigorously than some of the Conservative senators,” he said. “But when push came to shove, they all fell in line, they were all clearly whipped tonight as they clearly have been for the longest time.”

Independent Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, who leads the Independent Senators Group, disputed that the prime minister’s office is pulling the strings on how Independents vote.

“You only have to look at the number of amendments put forward by Independent senators to know that that’s not true,” he said.

The Senate has collectively made more than 40 amendments to the bill, and its passage means the Conservatives and pot opponents are all out of tools and options to delay or restrict legalization – at least in Parliament.

But the parliamentary pot drama isn’t over just yet.

While many of the amendments are small technical fixes, others are more substantive – such as one that allows provinces the option to ban home growing cannabis in their respective jurisdictions.

The Trudeau government will have to soon decide how many of the Senate’s changes it agrees with before the bill can be passed into law and then, later this summer, come into force allowing for retail cannabis sales. That means there could still be some time of back-and-forth between the two chambers over what the final bill should look like.

Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor told reporters Thursday in French that she and her colleagues will review all the amendments over the weekend and that a decision could be made at the beginning of next week.

Conservative senators had protested the bill’s passage Thursday and, earlier in the night, urged their colleagues to vote against the bill – arguing the Liberal government is “rushing” it to meet an “arbitrary political deadline,” and that dire health consequences will follow for Canadian youth and Indigenous communities.

Conservative Senate leader Larry Smith said Canadian youth will be “more exposed to marijuana than they have been before,” while Conservative Sen. Denise Batters said after pot is legal, “we will not be able to put this genie back in the bottle.”

But senators speaking in favour of the legislation said that “the sky will not fall” and the “world will not end” once marijuana is legalized, just like it didn’t when the prohibition of alcohol ended.

Independent Sen. Andre Pratte said pot prohibition and war on drugs style policies have failed at reducing marijuana consumption.

“Do we take a deep breath, close our eyes and stick with a demonstrably failed, hypocritical, unhealthy, prohibitionist approach of the past,” he asked, rhetorically. “Or do we move forward, eyes wide open?”

“I choose to open my eyes.”