Decriminalization marijuana, a promise to anyway, SSM and Canada’s opposition to Iraq made Canada in the words of Economist “cool”.  Other publications expressed similar sentiments and all cases above three where the focal points.  For example:

The New Yorker: 
  
“They have a comparatively sensible approach to the drug problem: while our federal government tries strenuously to put marijuana smokers in jail, even (or especially) when the marijuana has been smoked for medical purposes in states whose people have voted to sanction such use, their federal government is about to decriminalize the possession of small amounts. And now—with a minimum of fuss, hardly any hysteria, and no rending of garments—they have made it legal for persons of the same gender to marry each other. … 
“A week later, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced that, instead of trying to get the decision overturned, his cabinet would seek to codify it. Legislation is to be drafted over the next few weeks, vetted by Canada’s supreme court, and submitted to the federal parliament. It’s pretty much a lock that, perhaps as early as next fall, gay marriage will be the undisputed law of the land from St. John’s to the Klondike.

 

This ghastly prospect was evidently on Scalia’s mind as he composed his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas. If sodomy laws are unsustainable, he warned, then so are “laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation”&mdash ;masturbation? is that one still on the books?—“adult ery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity.” Doom looms, it would appear. According to Scalia, “The Court has taken sides in the culture war,” and the next step, logically, must be “judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada.” Leaving aside the question of who, exactly, gay marriage would be an imposition upon,  ….
Good old Canada. It’s the kind of country that makes you proud to be a North American.” http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030707t a_talk_hertzberg" title="http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030707t a_talk_hertzberg" target="_blank"http://www.newyorker.com/talk...    

 

 

San Jose Mercury: 
 
THINK CANADA COULD USE ONE MORE PROVINCE?

Oh, Canada! Has someone dumped something into your water?

The government up there will soon bless gay marriages, hand out marijuana to cancer patients and legalize possession of small amounts of pot by others.  Canadians were as staunchly against the war in Iraq as San Franciscans.  Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto are as ethnically diverse as San Jose -- and tolerant, too.

Americans have tended to think of Canada, if at all, as a placid little brother, a bland 51st state.  How times have changed.

In terms of soul mates, the Bay Area could be Canada's 11th province.  http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1051/a1 0.html" title="http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1051/a1 0.html" target="_blank"http://www.mapinc.org/drugnew...

 

 

Pittsburgh Post Gazette:
“And then there's the wild drug situation: Canadian doctors are authorized to dispense medical marijuana. Parliament is considering legislation that would not exactly legalize marijuana possession, as you may have heard, but would reduce the penalty for possession of under 15 grams to a fine, like a speeding ticket. This is to allow law enforcement to concentrate resources on traffickers; if your garden is full of wasps, it's smarter to go for the nest rather than trying to swat every individual bug. Or, in the United States, bong.

 

…   Like teenagers, we fiercely idolize individual freedom but really demand that everyone be the same. But the Canadians seem more adult -- more secure. They aren't afraid of foreigners. They aren't afraid of homosexuality. Most of all, they're not afraid of each other.

 

I wonder if America will ever be that cool.”   http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20030730sa m0730p1.asp" title="http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20030730sa m0730p1.asp" target="_blank"http://www.post-gazette.com/c...  

 Christian Science Monitor:  

“It's moving to become the third nation on the planet to legalize gay marriage. It's primed to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. And it vocally opposed the US war on Iraq.  These moves reflect a growing cultural assertiveness - especially on the importance of tolerance and multiculturalism, which are enshrined in Canada's version of the Bill of Rights. The shift is increasingly putting the US and Canada - the world's biggest trading partners - on a cultural collision course.”  http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p02s01-woam .html" title="http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p02s01-woam .html" target="_blank"http://www.csmonitor.com/2003...  

Why did these issues come to define a nation south of the boarder and why did, in words of the words of Bill O’Reilly, “The Canadian model [become] what progressive Americans [were] shooting for.”  The moving to Canada meme was, after all, not born of nowhere.   http://www.slate.com/id/2109300" title="http://www.slate.com/id/2109300" target="_blank"http://www.slate.com/id/21093...   

 The reason I think is this. The dominant critique of the Bush administration inside and outside the US is that it plays fast and loose with the facts, often pandering to US society’s worst fears and prejudges, for political gain.   These three issues are excellent examples of where the Bush administration did exactly that.   American progressives latched on what was happening in Canada because they thought Canadian politicians respected their citizens enough not to try to BS them into accepting policies of little merit. Of course the fact that until Dean, Democratic party did not dear question the merits or rational of the Iraq adventure and that they have been almost as bad as the Republicans in pushing reefer madness and defense of marriage also helps to explain why American progressives latched on to Canada.  There has long been a progressive void in the states.  
Needless to say, it was silly of American progressives to put any faith in Martin and in the Liberals.  He proceeded at snails pace with regard to SSM, arguably would have taken us to Iraq if he had of been prime Minster at the time and never moved forward on marijuana legislation.  Whenever Martin had an opportunity to come down against BS, as during Terry Shivio saga, he declined.  One can only presume that he did not wish to divert the public’s attention away from the inquiry that was devouring the Liberal party; after all, the public might forget that it was he who called the Gomery Inquiry.  The Conservative victory back in January officially closed the book on “cool” Canada and now we ourselves are drowning BS gleefully heaped on us by the Conservatives.  As for the Liberals, they are looking more like the Martin government minus the power or headlines everyday, i.e., completely lifeless and without a soul.         & nbsp; 

 

 

 The Le Dain Commission called for Marijuana to be decriminalized some 33 ago.

quote:
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----
"The ordinary citizen, seeing the assertions implied by the law frequently belied by pharmacological fact or the effects that he himself experiences in the use of drugs, has long since ceased to look for a relationship between the harmfulness of a substance and its classification under criminal law. In this domain, it must be said that the criminal law is thoroughly outdated and outworn."
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----

Marie-Andrée Bertrand, Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Montreal, Le Dain Commission 1973.

Gordon Gibson explained Trudeau’s reaction thus: “The report was released as we were touring a bull-semen facility in Guelph, Ont. (I am not making this up.) The press cared not at all about productive agriculture and totally about weed. At an end-of-tour press conference, the prime minister was asked if he favoured decriminalization. We were in the semen facility's boardroom and it had a blackboard with a permanent picture of Elsie the cow painted on, perhaps in recognition of the customer base. Mr. Trudeau was very quick. Saying not a word, he went to the blackboard, took the chalk and drew a cartoonist's balloon out of the cow's mouth. Inside he slowly wrote, "I like grass!" The room dissolved in laughter.” With regard to marijuana, the Liberals have lived in a perpetual state of bad faith ever since.

Sure in the 1980 throne speech Trudeau did say that it was time "to move cannabis offences to the Food and Drug Act and remove the possibility of imprisonment for simple possession”, but that never came to past and such comments only served as an acknowledgment and a reminder that the Liberal party had kept marijuana possession illegal for 7 years without itself believing in the rational for keeping it illegal.

In 2002 a Senate Committee looking into the issue of marijuana recommended in start terms that marijuana legal. Shortly thereafter Canada’s possession laws began to creak and break under their own internal contradictions; for four months Ontario had no possession law and laws in other jurisdictions narrowly avoided the same fate. Neither escaped Jean Chrétien notice. Chrétien did not share Trudeau’s catholic guilt in not allowing truth to prevail. However he did have revengeful streak, a good sense of Martin conservatism and good sense of political timing. He promised to decriminalize marijuana possession; Canadians he promised would face fines not criminal charges. His public musings about trying marijuana were a cruel reminder of the fact that for decades Canada had on its books a law its leaders literally regarded as a laughing matter. “I will have my money for my fine and a joint in my other hand.”

A commitment to decriminalize marijuana stayed Liberal policy after the Chrétien left and Martin took over, but remained a neglected child weighted down my provisions and language designed to pacify the Americans. Indeed, it seems that the more Martin tried to tape into anti Bush sentiment in Canada the more he was willing to allow the US to control Canadian drug policy. The Marc Emery case is a great example. For years Marc Emery had been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in Federal taxes on money he made “selling marijuana seeds”. Yet last summer, at the behest of the American government, Canada arrested Emery and laid the groundwork for him to be sent to the States to face charges. If convicted, which is a forgone conclusion given that Emery never hid what he was doing, Emery faces anywhere for 10 years to life behind bars for a crime that is rarely prosecuted in Canada and has only ever warranted a small fine. An attempt by BC marijuana activist to save Emery from being sent to the States speaks volumes about the Martin’s government lack of courage and bad faith. The activist has long pressed to have Emery charged under Canadian law. Under the terms of the extradition treaty, one can not be extradited if one is facing the same charge in one’s country of residence and one was arrested there. So far his efforts have not been successful. Canadian authorities seem unwilling to charge him under Canadian law, but are willing to send him to the States to face 10 to life in prison.

Needless to say, neither of what Chrétien or Martin proposed would have worked. One can not have, on the one hand, stringent enforcement for trafficking and, on the other hand, mere fines for possession. The problem is that at bottom the population rightly views marijuana as being pretty innocuous and this undermines the legitimacy of such a sharp conceptual divide. Indeed it undermines the legitimacy of Canada having any sort of marijuana laws at all. Even parking tickets have to be seen to serve some legitimate purpose for people not to view them as an unfair imposition. Such was not the case with the Liberals proposed Marijuana fines. Sure, Canadians understand that the Americans would not be pleased about legalization and as such there would be certain practical advantages to not legalizing it. However, that does not make marijuana prohibition in a general sense legitimate in their eyes; it just means that Canada is tailoring its own laws to meet the demands of Americans consideree so illegitimate that popular cultural considers them a symptom of madness “refer madness”. This can not stand. Any perception that Canada is enforcing laws to met with illegitimate demands of a bullying third party, whoever that may be, is simply poisonous to the health of a functioning democracy.