Article content

The federal election is just a few months away, which means Canadians are going to be bombarded with claims from the government about its apparent successes, while at the same time hearing endless counter arguments from opposition parties. In this sea of endless noise, it can be difficult to parse out where the federal government actually stands on its claims, and whether the opposition parties have legitimate grievances, or are just opposing for the sake of opposing.

When election day does come, Canada will be a year in to cannabis legalization, which gives us a good opportunity to reflect on how things have gone thus far. Legalization is smart policy overall. That said, at nearly the one-year mark, there is lots to reflect on regarding Canada’s cannabis legalization experiment.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Opinion: The Liberals are blowing smoke with claim they 'wiped out' half of illegal cannabis market Back to video

Just last week new StatsCan figures came out in regards to consumer behaviour and cannabis usage. Some interesting facts emerged, like the fact that men are two times more likely to consume cannabis than women are, and that men are more likely to use cannabis for non-medicinal reasons. In addition to usage patterns, StatsCan revealed that 48 per cent of cannabis consumers surveyed said they purchased some of their cannabis in the legal market. As soon as the report came out, Trudeau’s right-hand man, Gerry Butts, and senior policy adviser Tyler Meredith, were quick to pat themselves on the back for “wiping out half of the illegal market.” Wiping out half of the illegal market would be incredible, and something worth congratulating, if it were true.