OTTAWA—Conservatives lost their best chance to stymie the Trudeau government’s plan to legalize recreational marijuana Wednesday after an eleventh-hour intervention by two ministers mollified the concerns of Indigenous senators.
The 11 members of the Senate’s Aboriginal Peoples’ committee, as well as some Indigenous senators not on the committee, had planned to support a Conservative amendment that would have indefinitely deferred implementation of Bill C-45, pending a report on government efforts to address the concerns of Aboriginal communities.
That could well have been enough to ensure the amendment passed, given that other senators are also sympathetic to the concerns expressed by numerous Aboriginal leaders who complain they’ve not been properly consulted on the measure.
But just prior to the debate, Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor and Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott sent a letter to the committee, promising a full report to Parliament in September and another within 12 months.
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