Mr. Speaker, what we are doing here today is setting out the framework for regulating and legalizing marijuana. What is going to follow is the exact plan to ensure that public education is furthered.
We do not want to do what, unfortunately, was done by the previous government, which was to provide nearly no dollars for public education on health at all. I look at the rates of tobacco use and how that impacts young people. The national tobacco strategy was thrown in the garbage. The dollars that were put in every single year for public education to make sure that young people did not smoke tobacco were not expended at all.
It is time to turn the page on a dark time that occurred in public health awareness. We want to do that not only on cannabis but on tobacco and public health issues in general.