Recreational marijuana legalization in Canada

The process of a bill becoming a law

In Canada, the process of a bill, becoming a law has several stages that are outlined in the federal legislative process. Once a public bill is presented by a cabinet minister in either the Senate or House of Commons in various levels and passes through the first second and third reading before it can gain royal assent (Hogg, 2007). In the first reading, the draft bill is printed and all of the relevant public representatives in the respective house are allowed to gain knowledge of the bill. The second reading is done in the same house where the bill is presented where the nature of the bill is debated and it is referred to a legislative, special or standing committee based on the nature of the bill decided by a vote among the members of the house (Zander, 2015). The bill is then analysed by a consideration committee, which analyses the clauses in the bill and uses various witness accounts and expert opinions to recommend possible changes to improve the bill and mitigate any possible negative impact. The bill is then presented in the house along with any possible amendments and the supporting justification (Barnett, 2017). The house then votes on support or opposition to the amendments. The third reading considers the final amended version of the bill and the bill is passed to senate upon agreement of the house through voting.

The final stage of a bill becoming law is the royal assent that is given by the governor general in the name of the queen. This is necessary final stage of a bill becoming a law. The governor general can also reserve assent or withhold assent in the name of the queen, which would require further amendments before the bill becomes a law.
The possible impact of Bill C-45 on the population

The most probable impact of the legalization of the marijuana is the frequency of marijuana use by the people and the control and regulation difficulties in the enforcement. While the legalization of the marijuana use does not have any significant impact on the increase of the user percentage in the population, this is highly debatable as the data shows the higher frequency of use of marijuana among youth in regions where recreational marijuana has been legalised (Cerdá et al., 2017). Thus, the impact of the same in Canada is impossible to predict.

Another possible impact is the use of the legalization to cultivate and produce marijuana for illegal import, which can give rise to crime, and violence, which is a negative impact on the society. This can easily be correlated with regulation problems as there is no way to predict the amount of marijuana cultivated from a specific number of plants, which can vary greatly. Thus, the regulation difficulty and possible use of the legalization as over for illegal export in the countries where the substance is illegal can have a severe impact on the effectiveness of the regulation enforcement (McGinty et al., 2017).

Therefore, the possible crime and regulation difficulties are a possibility while the impact on the use of the abuse by the population is specific to the cultural and social factors (Saaty, 2015).