My extradition to the United States, for which i was arrested on July 29, 2005, was a joint U.S.-Canadian government project involving, remarkably, 30 departments of the U.S. and Canadian governments.
From 2002 when the U.S. opened its case against me, to July 2005 when I was arrested, the Liberal government of the day under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin had Alberta MP Anne McLellan as point person in the three cabinet portfolios that were responsible for extraditing me; she was variously the justice, health, and public safety minister in those three years, as well as being deputy prime minister on the day I was arrested on July 29, 2005.
Earlier this month, McLellan was made chairperson of the legalization task force. This task force will listen to submissions by the public and experts in the fall and winter and come up with legislation proposals. But with former Toronto police chief Bill Blair and McLellan heading up the legalization file, is it any wonder NDP MP Anne Minh-Thu Quach rose in the House of Commons on June 3 to say this:
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals made a big promise to legalize marijuana. However, the government just assigned the file to the former justice minister, who has said in the past that she is opposed to the medical use of marijuana.
Let me summarize. A former police chief and now a pot opponent are in charge of the legalization of marijuana. That is like putting Colonel Sanders in charge of the hen house.
Is the prime minister preparing to kill his own plan to legalize marijuana?”
Someone finally said the obvious!
In her time in the Liberal government spotlight, McLellan called marijuana a “scourge”, suggested that marijuana led to the murder of four Mounties in the Alberta town of Mayerthorpe, promised a Liberal government would never be “in the business of legalizing marijuana”, wanted judges who refused to give tough penalties for weed offences to explain their reasons in writing to her, said “we do not want Canadians to use marijuana”, and “essentially instructed staff to obstruct the processing of Canadians” trying to access marijuana to relieve pain.
In an August 17, 2005, Vancouver Sun article entitled “Irwin Cotler Throws Up Smokescreen”, columnist Ian Mulgrew speculated on McLellan’s fingerprints being all over the Emery extradition file, noting she was a "pro-American hawk and rabid anti-pot crusader”.
In the months before my arrest for extradition to the United States, I was jousting with McLellan in newspapers about the four Mounties killed by a lone shooter in Alberta who had some marijuana plants in a barn.
It was laid out in a Calgary Sun article entitled "Political Furor Sparked", which was published on March 5, 2005.
Here's a snippet of what appeared:
“What we’re doing is enhancing the Criminal Code by increasing the maximum sentences that courts can levy against grow-ops,” McLellan told reporters.
“This is hysteria,” said Marc Emery, the leader of the BC Marijuana Party, “the bodies are hardly even cold and already they want to imprison tens of thousands more people growing marijuana. If marijuana were legal, we wouldn’t have any of these problems. I regard this as the ultimate political exploitation.”
Pot smokers should be outraged
McLellan’s appointment sadistically mocks everyone who has worked for and supported this movement. It mocks the voters. Are we dumb enough to think that McLellan’s lust for meanness towards marijuana sinners has suddenly disappeared?
McLellan’s appointment to a marijuana file is like bringing the Ku Klux Klan back to write civil rights legislation.
Now magazine of Toronto published an article on July 26, 2007, about a government audit of the medical marijuana program, which stated: “The audit makes particular note of a 2003 meeting at which then Health Minister Anne McLellan essentially instructed staff to obstruct the processing of Canadians seeking medpot.”
I wrote in earlier blogs that the most important aspect of this legalization task force is to remind the committee and the country of the millions of victims of the 50 years of marijuana prohibition. McLellan in that sense is the perfect foil. After all, as health minister, justice minister, and public safety minister, she’s one of those responsible for so many prohibition victims.
So here are my questions for the chairperson of the legalization task force;
Marc Emery: Why did Justin Trudeau put a past kingpin of prohibition in charge of marijuana legalization task force? | Georgia Straight Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly
