What's important here is having the three levels of government involved. We need to ask for municipal opinions. They feel they've been left out of the discussion. We need to talk to the provincial ministries of education. Teachers have felt they have been muzzled, that they haven't been able to talk about this issue. They have feared for their jobs—it goes that far—and have left the discussion of cannabis to law enforcement officers, in particular, the DARE program.
Since l982 the DARE program has literally taken over the classroom on discussing the issue of cannabis, and it's usually with a zero tolerance and “just say no” message, which has left the children frustrated and unsafe because they stop listening. While the teachers are in the staff room, asking, “What do we do here? We haven't been given the responsibility to teach this”, we have now asked for a moratorium on law officers in the classroom, so that we can return to educators the responsibility for delivering evidence-based drug education in a holistic manner.
The federal government needs to talk to the provincial ministries of education across Canada. We need to get the values of families discussed without fear or judgment. Until we do that, none of the governments are talking back and forth. Parents are feeling that they have to take matters into their own hands. If they do, educators must reflect those families. Right now we don't see that. If we can really get the dialogue going and have the discussion without the fear, the federal government can actually help move that forward.