The anti-drug private members' bill sponsored by local Member of Parliament John Weston was passed into law on Friday (March 25) the last such bill to be enacted before Parliament was dissolved.
Bill C-475, which makes it a crime to procure the ingredients of crystal meth and ecstasy for the purposes of producing the drugs, received unanimous support in the House of Commons and Senate, Weston said in a statement. However, it had not passed third reading in the Senate by the middle of last week and, with the Conservative minority government facing dissolution, was in danger of dying on the order paper.
Had third reading not been unanimous in the Senate on Thursday (March 24), the bill would not have been able to attain passage before Friday's confidence vote in the House of Commons.
Some last-minute scrambling on the part of Weston and others, though, finally brought the bill to a vote in the Senate and onto the desk of Governor-General David Johnston, who signed it into law on Friday just after 8 a.m.
"Today's enactment is all about protecting our youth, building our communities, keeping our streets safer," Weston, MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, said in a statement. "It's about teamwork, and the great progress we can make in public service when Canadians of different backgrounds find common ground.
"The new law will provide much-needed help for law enforcement officials to protect our young people from the scourge of these drugs."
