Considering how long people have talked about Martin Cauchon running for leadership and how long Martin Cauchon has resisted the urge to run for leadership, it was surprising to see him jump into the LPC race mere hours before the deadline to declare.
It will be interesting to see how Cauchon positions himself, but he’s certainly a welcome addition to the contest. Despite being out of the game for a few years, he has nearly as much MP experience as the rest of the field combined. Cauchon will no doubt highlight his record as the Justice Minister who decriminalized pot and legalized same sex marriage – and who can forget the thrilling changes to the tax code he brought in as Minister of Revenue!
This sets the field at 9 candidates, with Justin in front, followed by 4 former or current MPs, and 4 long shots who are effectively in it to raise their profile. It will take a lot to knock Trudeau out but, at the very least, the presence of solid candidates like Martin Cauchon ensures Trudeau will be challenged on the issues, and that viable alternatives exist if he does stumble.
One response to “Cauchon is in”
Cauchon didn’t decriminalize pot because it isn’t decriminalized, nor has it ever been in our lifetimes; it’s still 100% illegal, and for amounts under 30 g (summary conviction) you can still get a fine of $1000 and 6 months in jail (see sec 4(5) of the CDSA). A bill to actually decriminalize pot was introduced by (Paul) Martin Justice Minister Irwin Cotler on 1 Nov 2004, referred to the Liberal-chaired Justice committee the next day and then left to languish there without a single meeting over the next 13 months before the next election, even though with NDP and Bloc support (though they only needed the Bloc) the Liberals could have pushed the bill through.
Can we please stop pretending the Liberals (or anyone) decriminalized pot? It’s fully illegal, and saying otherwise could have serious criminal consequences for those we leave to be ignorant.