The BC School Trustees Association moved a motion on vaping over the weekend asking the federal government to step up to the plate when it comes to youth vaping.

BCSTA President Stephanie Higginson says trustees want to focus on that education aspect. “There does seem to be a gap in legislation around the way that these products are being advertised. So, people would like to start with let’s not advertise them in a way that’s so appealing to youth so that we can not necessarily need all these things, but right now we do resources on vape health implications and vape cessation.”

Higginson says this motion allows it to have more direct advocacy with the Ministry of Education locally and Health Canada. “And we will utilize this motion to direct some of our advocacy resources towards this issue. We have a seat at the Canadian School Board Association and we’ll bring this forward to the Canadian School Board Association to look for some federal advocacy at that level as well and utilize our membership in that organization to focus at the federal level.”

Without having any specific statistics, when asked if the issue of vaping has surpassed instances of smoking Higginson did answer from anecdotal data saying vaping appears to be overtaking smoking, believing youth may not understand these products do contain nicotine. She says she’s hearing from various boards across the province that they’re having a real issue dealing with this and some boards are characterizing this as a crisis. “The amount of time that is being focused on helping our students in the schools deal with the various situations around it is a concern. A real concern specifically for some local boards, but also a concern provincially when we hear about the number of boards that are dealing with it.”

The Motion as passed reads: