Editor's note: This story has been updated online following a communication from Elections BC.
Come this fall Powell River residents will likely find themselves answering the door to a canvasser and being asked to sign a petition to decriminalize pot. Sensible BC director Dana Larsen is currently touring around the province drumming up support for the marijuana referendum campaign.
“Our work is to build momentum, get people excited about the campaign and to register several thousand British Columbians as signature gathers,” said Larsen.
Elections BC has given approval in principle to an initiative petition application to amend the Police Act which would effectively decriminalize marijuana possession in the province. The proposed changes, called the Sensible Policing Act, would direct the attorney general, who sets policing priorities in the province, to not put any resources into enforcing federal laws pertaining to marijuana possession for adults. It would also call on Ottawa to allow BC to begin legally taxing and regulating cannabis much like alcohol and tobacco.
Larsen has less than six weeks to sign up as many canvassers as he can throughout BC’s 85 electoral ridings to be ready for the September 9 signature-collecting start. To gather signatures, Elections BC must approve each canvasser who must be a registered voter.
According to a spokesperson from Elections BC, if Larsen is successful in meeting the threshold of collecting signatures of 10 per cent of the registered voters in each of the province’s 85 electoral districts, a total over 310,000, by December 9, 2013, and successfully passes the verification process, the draft Bill (Sensible Policing Act) would be forwarded to a Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives. The Select Standing Committee has two choices: to recommend the draft Bill be submitted to the Legislative Assembly for debate, or, to send the draft Bill to the Chief Electoral Officer to conduct an initiative vote.
“We know the public support is out there,” said Larsen. “Our polling and other polling consistently shows over 70 per cent of British Columbians want our legislation to become law.”
Despite the polling numbers of public support, collecting the required number of signatures will nevertheless be challenging. According to Elections BC, out of nine previous initiative applications approved since 1995, only one has obtained the required number of signatures—to repeal the harmonized sales tax. The next scheduled initiative vote will be September 27, 2014.
City of Powell River Councillor Debbie Dee is helping to organize the local charge for Sensible BC. She is assisting with gathering people who want to be local campaign canvassers.
“Come September we’ll be out in full force,” said Dee.
For more information about Sensible BC, readers can visit its website. To sign up as a canvasser, interested readers can contact Dee at [email protected].
