NOT LEANING ON U.S. TO HALT MARIJUANA BILL, MP SAYS AFTER MEETING

OTTAWA -- A Liberal MP who met with the U.S. deputy drug czar about Canada's
plan to decriminalize marijuana acknowledged yesterday encouraging him to
amplify his concern to Prime Minister Jean Chretien about how the bill could
harm cross-border traffic.

Brenda Chamberlain, who attended the meeting with a handful of other MPs,
said that the members were not asking Barry Crane to lean on the federal
government to halt the bill. Rather, Ms. Chamberlain said she wanted Mr.
Crane to reaffirm what the consequences of the bill might be.

"The message was very clear from Dr. Barry Crane . . . there would be
problems across the border," Ms. Chamberlain said, adding that she and other
MPs responded that "if that is so, you need to tell the PM and you need to
tell the bureaucrats."

Ms. Chamberlain and several other MPs met with Dr. Crane and other U.S.
officials last month. A Foreign Affairs official who sat in on the meeting
wrote in a memo that Ms. Chamberlain and others appeared to be trying to
encourage U.S. officials to derail the bill, in part by pointing out that
trade and border issues would be affected. Ms. Chamberlain denied yesterday
that this was her intent.

Asked why the group would encourage Dr. Crane to express his anxieties to
the Canadian government, Ms. Chamberlain said the issue needs to be
underscored.

"You have to say it again, because this is an important thing," Ms.
Chamberlain said.

Asked if the MPs' encouragement might be seen as an effort to get Dr. Crane
to lean on the government, Ms. Chamberlain said she didn't believe so.

"I don't know. I don't think so," she said. "I mean, to me this was just an
exchange of how he saw things, and it isn't anything different than what we
had read in the newspapers." She added that the meeting was not held in
secret, nor was it conducted in the U.S. embassy, as originally reported,
but in Parliament's West Block.

She also said she believed the story was politically motivated by enemies of
the MPs who wanted to make them look bad at the kickoff of a three-day
caucus meeting in North Bay yesterday.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said Liberal backbenchers should seek their counsel
on issues from people within the country. "I would certainly be distressed
if that was happening in my caucus," he said, adding: "We tend to go to
Canadians for advice, not Americans."

In North Bay yesterday, Liberal MP John Godfrey said MPs have every right to
meet U.S. officials, but said that if the Foreign Affairs reports are
accurate, the MPs would appear to have pushed the limits. ". . . Whether
it's fair ball to try and use the United States system to put pressure on
the Canadian system seems debatable."