Courtesy: The Star
Senate passes marijuana bill
After more than six hours of speeches, senators passed Bill C-45, which is also known as the Cannabis Act, on its third reading Thursday night. The bill was passed 56 to 30, with one abstention.
The vote was one of the final challenges facing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s key promise to legalize marijuana this year. In the face of staunch opposition from the upper chamber’s 32 Conservative members, Trudeau had appointed three new independent senators over the past week, in an apparent bid to better the bill’s chances of succeeding.
Now that the bill has been passed in the Senate, it will return to the House of Commons, where the amendments may be approved, rejected or modified. Following that process, the bill will then go back to the Senate for another vote where further amendments could then be proposed. That means that despite an earlier July 1 promise from the Liberals, it could be weeks — if not months — before marijuana becomes legal for recreational use in Canada, thus ending a prohibition that has stood since 1923.
