OTTAWA—The Liberal plan to legalize marijuana by midsummer was rescued Thursday when senators — including Independents who were appointed but not controlled by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — voted for the Trudeau government’s proposed bill.

In a 44-29 vote, the Senate nudged forward Bill C-45, one of two key bills that would enact a new legal framework for cannabis production and distribution.

It was a “second reading” or vote on the bill in principle, and a late-hour victory that had appeared far from certain for a key Liberal promise, coming only after a memo went out late Wednesday to travelling independent senators to return for the crucial vote.

Hours before, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had warned senators that his government was elected with a mandate to make the controversial change to Canada’s drug laws.

“We expect a more independent Senate will do its work, to look at legislation sent by the House of Commons, that they evaluate the positive impacts on the community, that they bring ameliorations, if needed. But it is very clear that this bill responds first to an electoral promise that we made very clearly during the election campaign and for which Canadians voted, and also that is something that we will continue to work on with different levels of government.”

The bill now moves on for more detailed study in Senate committees (in fact five committees will study different aspects of the legal pot scheme) with a final vote on the legislation expected in June.

The Liberals’ proposed legislation — and its rush to get it passed into law before the end of the parliamentary sitting in June — had run into strong objections in the upper chamber from Conservatives and some Independents who feared the government was moving too fast.

The vote capped several days of nail-biting in Senate hallways for the bill’s backers who figured they had just a six-vote margin to get the bill passed. They expected 33 Conservative senators would vote against the legislation, and were seeking support from the ranks of 43 Independent senators, 11 Liberals and six who have no affiliation.

Yet there was a question mark over how several of those would vote, and the outcome was thrown into doubt with up to 20 senators — mostly Independent members — out of town because of Senate committee travel, and others absent due to illness. The Independent senators’ group circulated an email late Wednesday alerting them to the importance of Thursday’s vote and several returned to Ottawa.

Sen. Peter Harder, the government representative in the red chamber, said voting against the bill “before we’ve even gone to committee and exercised our sober second thought would be very much undermining the independent, less partisan, more reflective Senate.” He said the Senate had never before killed a government bill on second reading.

Have Your Say

In the end it was the vote of fiercely Independent senators, who did not want blame for killing the bill prematurely, who determined the outcome.

Sen. Marie-Françoise Mégie, an Independent named by Trudeau in 2016, who is a physician, supported the bill’s progress through to the next stage of study, even as she expressed concerns about the impact of cannabis use on the adolescent brain, and the risks of addiction and impaired driving.

She called for greater public education and awareness around the risks of cannabis use and for more research into its effects on health. She pointed to promising research on the benefits of cannabis for chronic pain management and palliative care — it has been shown to decrease opioid use by up to 64 per cent according to a 2016 study, but she said “a number of alarming facts cannot be ignored.”

“It can cause hallucination and paranoia and changes in cognition” in youth up to age 25, said Mégie. She urged Senate colleagues to take advantage of the opportunity to shape a better law. “Legalization will occur but it must not occur at any cost. Let’s take advantage of this moment to engage in deep and meaningful discussion in committee.”

In New Brunswick, Trudeau offered his oft-repeated justification for the bill, saying “the current system does not work” because Canadian youth are the highest users of marijuana in the world even though recreational use is banned by law.

However, Conservative senator and medical researcher Judith Seidman challenged Trudeau to provide proof, citing the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that suggests cannabis use in at least eight other countries exceeds the use among Canadian teenagers aged 15-16. Seidman slammed the government for failing to mount an aggressive public education campaign for young people, its failure to regulate cannabis marketing and advertising as tightly as tobacco, saying the Liberal approach has “more in common with how we regulate alcohol, which failed to protect underage users.”

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“We’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think the same thing won’t happen with cannabis.”

Independent Sen. Tony Dean, who sponsored the government’s bill in the Senate, urged Conservatives against relying on statistical disputes about youth use of cannabis, “whether that places Canada first, second or third in the world, we should be worried about it.” He said the government launched its digital marijuana awareness campaign on March 16, and Canadians expect senators to deal with the issues, “not sweep these questions under the rug for another 20 years.”

But Sen. Larry Smith, leader of the Conservative opposition in the Senate, said the bill fails in its overall stated goal: to protect youth. He warned young people exposed to second-hand smoke in homes where adults may legally smoke or grow pot are at risk. He blasted the government for ignoring the Canadian Medical Association’s recommendation to set the legal age for consumption at 25, opting instead for 18, and for dragging its feet on launching a public awareness campaign, and for failing to provide Indigenous communities with the necessary supports for addiction and mental health treatment in northern communities where substance abuse and suicide rates exceed the national average.

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