Pubdate: Thu, 04 Oct 2012
Source: Chief, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Whistler Printing & Publishing
Contact: http://www.squamishchief.com/section/squamish0303&template=letter
Website: http://www.squamishchief.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2414
Author: David Burke

THE SLOW BURN

If municipal politicians in British Columbia have their way, 
Canadians found in possession of small amounts of marijuana will one 
day receive a simple citation and will not incur a criminal record. 
What's more, government officials will study the regulation and 
taxation of weed and if that's determined to be plausible and 
beneficial, can legalization be far behind?

Well, maybe. The resolution adopted at the Union of B.C. 
Municipalities (UBCM) conference last week in Victoria is merely a 
straw poll of some 1,500 elected local leaders, in one province. By 
most accounts, the vote was split - resolutions of this nature 
generally are voted on by voice response and, if that is indecisive, 
by a show of hands across the conference floor.

Furthermore, a vote of municipal officials means little, because the 
Criminal Code of Canada, which includes provisions making the 
possession of small amounts of pot a crime, is administered 
federally. Any change in the law would require federal approval, and 
the current Conservative government is unlikely to act on the advice 
of a slim majority of local leaders in the country's most 
pot-friendly province.

Still, this is how change takes place in a representative, 
parliamentary democracy - which is to say, slowly, if at all. IF 
municipal leaders in all 10 provinces and three territories were to 
pass similar resolutions, and IF there were a different government in 
Ottawa, and IF the unelected Senate were so inclined... well, 
stranger things have happened. But don't hold your breath, eh?

In Squamish, the discussion over Coun. Bryan Raiser's motion on Sept. 
18 lasted all of 10 minutes, and again, it was a split vote, with 
Mayor Rob Kirkham and councillors Ron Sander and Doug Race voting against.

We were, frankly, surprised to learn that Race argued that council 
didn't have a mandate from the community to express its opinions on 
marijuana regulation, because it clearly did - when it was elected. 
Yes, marijuana wasn't a huge issue during last year's municipal 
campaign, but as Raiser stated, "One big job of being a councillor is 
talking to other levels of government" - including talking to them 
about issues that are outside local leaders' authority.

Should council, as Sander argued, "be focusing on things that we have 
identified collectively as a community"? Of course, but this writer 
doesn't think those 10 minutes were wasted. They were a prime example 
of representative democracy - glacially slow as it may be - in action.

- - David Burke
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom