Thank you.
I'm thinking of the program that we have in Ontario. I don't know if it's in other places, but there's a VIP program that the police conduct in schools. It's about drugs and influences. The acronym stands for “values, influences and peers”. The reason it came to my mind is that when a policeman walks into a classroom—especially of sixth graders, let's say—they can create a big impact with what they say. If they go and speak to each classroom and talk about hate crimes and Islamophobia or anti-Black racism, it's going to have a great impact on those young minds.
When we see resources being used for specific areas, we can see the effects. I can see how much that impacted my children and even me as a child in listening to those police officers and talking about making the right choices. If we see that nationally this has become a very big problem, maybe those types of programs need to be done, and they need to be done in a very small one-on-one type of classroom setting. Leaders such as police officers can really make a big difference if they come in and speak about what actually is a hate crime and what would happen if someone felt that way if they were targeted at a young age, and what types of effects that would have on them or, vice versa, on the person who was doing the hate or the cyber-bullying—what would happen to them.
I think it could have a really big impact.