Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his entirely relevant question.
We do indeed need a comprehensive approach. This illustrates the complexity of legalizing marijuana. I am a member of the House of Commons. I am not in the government, but I have the authority to sponsor a bill from Senator Claude Carignan that would first and foremost help equip our police officers and provide them the necessary training.
The Liberals have the majority. They can go ahead if they want, but it would be wholly irresponsible to legalize marijuana before training people, raising awareness, and implementing an education strategy. In our society we are fighting to reduce the number of smokers and promote healthy lifestyles, but I have before me a Prime Minister whose current priority for this Parliament and this session is to legalize marijuana.
That is what I wanted to say. That is all I had to add to this great debate to ensure that we equip our police officers. I have met with them and heard what they had to say. They say that they are not trained and that the action plans to train police officers are not in place. There is nothing in the budget to equip them. The budget allocates $9.6 billion over five years for legalizing marijuana, including $1 billion annually for prevention and education across Canada. It is totally ridiculous.
There ends my small contribution. Let us hope that the government does better to help Canadians.