DAYCARE AND HEAD START - 1970

This brief, presented to Premier Alex Campbell and the Minister of Education, Gordon Bennett, restated needs which were emphasized in 1962. Needs in teacher training and public health services had not been fully resolved.

Two programs of Day Care and Head Start had been in operation in Charlottetown. Home and School urged that these be continued and that a program of teacher training in early childhood education be made available at Holland College.

NON-MEDICAL USE OF DRUGS -1970

The Federation had the opportunity of presenting two briefs before the LeDain Commission at public hearings in Charlottetown in February and November, 1970.

At the first hearing it was requested that penalties on youthful first offenders be eased, and that the severity of penalties on pushers be vastly increased. Furthermore, the brief urged that a massive educational program be launched to inform youth and parents of the physical and social dangers inherent in drug use.

The November hearing provided an opportunity to react to the Commission's interim report published the previous June. The Federation commended the Commission on its stand con- cerning tactics of law enforcement and read into the record the resolution passed at the previous National Home and School Convention in July 1969 which, among other things, emphasized treatment and rehabilitation of drug users rather than their punishment.

Grave exception was taken to the inclusion in the report of letters which had almost the flavour of ”testaments", written by teachers, about the delights of spending the weekend smoking marijuana. It was stressed that far more research was required before it could be claimed that marijuana is harmless.

It was the Federation’s feeling that the real need was to seek out the WHY. What was causing youth to turn to drugs? Likewise, it was felt that more emphasis and more dollars should

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