Further to my colleague's comments about public awareness and education, the Minister of Health did say that the Liberals were on their way with this rollout, but I received a copy of the RFP from Health Canada that's looking for a contractor to put together a public awareness and education program directed at young people and their influencers, which is what we heard in the testimony that we need to do. That RFP is not even due with bids until October 16. From then on, you'll have to start putting together the awareness program. With 271 days to go, certainly that's not going to happen anywhere near the rush date of July 2018.
Now, with respect to the age comment, this was exactly one of the reasons why the evidence we heard said we should raise the age, not lower it, because 18-year-olds hang out with 17-year-olds and 16-year-olds, and there was a concern that there would be transfer of marijuana to them. Witnesses from other jurisdictions had 21 as the age, and the Canadian Medical Association said that this was a compromise between the health harms that kids up to 25 would receive and understanding the prevention. The idea was that 21-year-olds don't hang out with 16-year-olds, so some prevention would happen.
I am disappointed not to see any age changes in this bill. We see that Alberta has come out with 21, and I think that would have been a better answer.