Yes and yes. So, yes we should and yes we can.
The suggestion I brought forward is a more comprehensive national sexual health promotion strategy. Recognizing that education and health are provincial responsibilities, I still think there's a place for leadership at the federal level. In other words, if there is a set of standards, for example, at the federal level that says that all schools have to receive this type of information about pornography or sexual violence, I think that sets the goalpost, if you will, for how provinces do what they do. In fact, in a blog I just put out on Monday about this topic, there's a clickable link that allows you to look at the distribution of sexual health education across the country. You'll see it's quite variable—by age, by region, etc.
I think the leadership has to come from the national level, again, by looking at the federal government to say this is a crisis.
Using the example of the increase of sexually transmitted infections since the 1990s onward, there's a huge upward trend and no indication of slowing that down. That means we are actually educating kids in the school system without providing tools for them to make decisions about things such as sexual violence or the prevention of STBBIs.
We know from a public health perspective—and this is perhaps the hook to public health—that the cost to the taxpayer doesn't go away. In fact, it increases across the life course of those individuals. So I think starting at the school level and saying that this is something that needs to be done, but with federal leadership, is the way to go.