Pubdate: Wed, 21 Oct 2015
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Tiffany Crawford
Page: A5

TRUDEAU PROMISES WITH B.C. ROOTS

The Vancouver Sun's Tiffany Crawford looks at five priorities in B.C.
that Justin Trudeau has promised to tackle as prime minister:

1. MARIJUANA

The Liberals have promised to legalize marijuana for recreational use,
arguing that too many young Canadians end up with criminal records for
possessing small amounts of the drug. Trudeau has not said how soon
legalization will happen because first the government will need to
figure out how to tax and regulate weed. He said it could take a year
or two before it is made legal. Legalization has been a hot election
topic in Vancouver, home to Prince of Pot and legalization activist
Marc Emery, who spent five years in a U.S. prison for selling
marijuana seeds on the Internet. This year's annual 4/20 legalization
rally drew an estimated 20,000 people to downtown Vancouver.

2. MISSING AND MURDERED WOMEN

Trudeau pledged to "immediately launch a national public inquiry" into
the killings and abductions of indigenous women and girls. This is an
important issue in B.C., where 18 girls and women, many of them
aboriginal, were murdered or went missing along the Highway of Tears
in northern B.C. between 1969 and 2006. In October, Bob Zimmer,
re-elected Monday as MP for Prince George-Peace River-Northern
Rockies, came under fire for suggesting one of the main problems for
aboriginal women was the fact they didn't stay on the reserves.
Stephen Harper refused to hold an inquiry, calling the issue a
law-and-order problem, and saying that police had solved most of the
crimes.

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MAP posted-by: Matt