Masi. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the federal government does not pass legislation, the current laws will remain in place. There is not much we can do but continue our work to get ready to implement once they do pass legislation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, as I said, it is federal law that they are working on. If they decide that it is unable to be done by the time that they have specified, then we would just have to change direction and just continue to do the work that we can to sure that we are ready for implementation once the federal government does legalize cannabis.

I would like to ask the Minister what process, I guess, we would have to do if we decided that there was no way that we were going to be able to pass legislation within this time frame and then the federal government moves to decriminalize the legislation. If the federal government continues on with that, at this point, would this government actually actively try to decriminalize marijuana, too? I am curious to know if that could something that could be done quickly or if that process would be just as slow as actually passing the legislation.

My understanding is that the federal government has to pass legislation to legalize cannabis. I do not think we have the ability as a jurisdiction to do it on our own, because it is still illegal according to the Criminal Code, and that would have to be changed. I do not think we have the ability to enact this legislation on our own without the federal government passing their legislation to legalize cannabis.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.