Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member on returning to the House. We are both passionate about the Durham region and I appreciated his first speech.
I was rather startled that the member would use the approach that we learn from the lessons of tobacco as we make marijuana more accessible to more Canadians. Our lessons from tobacco have been dealing with the serious health impacts that we have come to know as a society over the last 50 years. Therefore, we have made it harder, we have restricted access, and enforced more programs to stop young people from smoking. The government is about to embark on the opposite course.
If we were about to learn from the lessons of tobacco, we would not be legalizing a substance that clinical studies have shown can actually hamper brain development in young people. Why would we be making it more accessible to young people?
How can we actually not truly learn from tobacco by keeping this an illegal substance?