Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here. At the end of the day, I think everybody's priority is the health and safety of Canadians, particularly our youth. I think everybody would agree that youth use is obviously too high.
I'd like to maybe challenge a little bit what you said, Madam Bogden, that clearly the status quo is not working. The World Health Organization and the Public Health Agency of Canada released a survey of over 30,000 kids in 377 schools across Canada. This survey was first administered in 1990. According to this survey of kids, cannabis use is now at its lowest level since 1990. About 23% of boys and girls aged 15 to 16 report having tried the drug, which is down by half compared with its peak in 2002, when 50% of boys said they had smoked.
I was interested that you parroted exactly the government's line that Mr. Oliver put out, that obviously the status quo is not working. If we define the status quo, we've seen the rates go from, say, 50% of boys.... Maybe it's just 40% or whatever, but clearly we're seeing a decline to where they're saying it's around 22% now. If we're saying that a decline of that percentage is not working, how would you define a system that is working? How are you going to measure what you're going to be doing? Do you have any evidence to suggest that legalization is going to lower that even further?