Hon. Mary Coyle: Senator Gold, in their submission on Bill C-5, the Black Legal Action Centre, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund supported the government’s characterization of substance use as a public health matter rather than a criminal one. Among other recommendations, they asked for automatic expungement of records for simple drug possession to replace the current costly and cumbersome system. In 2018, when cannabis was legalized in Canada, there was strong support to include pardons for previous offences as part of that legislation, including from the C.D. Howe Institute, which called it an “economic waste” to saddle people with criminal records for something that was no longer a crime.

Carrying a criminal record, as we all know, can make it harder for people — especially the already marginalized — to find housing, go to school, find a job or cross a border. Estimates range anywhere from 10,000 to hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are impacted by this ongoing burden.

Senator Gold, even with the now-lower cost and the possibility of applying for pardons for cannabis-related offences, only 631 applications have been accepted in the past three years. Senator Gold, will the government take note of this stark evidence of the inadequacy of the current system and heed the sensible recommendation to take the responsibility to automatically expunge records for simple drug possession?