The interim leader of the Conservative Party, who as health minister consistently railed against any notion of legalizing marijuana, has had something of a change of heart.

No, Rona Ambrose does not suddenly support legalizing pot. But on Wednesday, in another apparent shift from her predecessor Stephen Harper, the official Opposition leader suggested on a Vancouver radio show that the sooner the new Liberal government takes action, the better off kids will be.

Ambrose, currently on a cross-country tour focused on the economy, was pressed by CKNW AM 980’s Simi Sara on the past government’s record of pot prohibition and whether the stance hampered her party’s election results.

Interim Tory Leader Rona Ambrose speaks in the House of Commons. (Photo: The Canadian Press)

Ambrose said as health minister under Harper, she was concerned about the “infiltration” of unregulated marijuana dispensaries. There was evidence, she said, that such stores were selling pot to children.

She remains worried about dispensaries now that the “cat’s out of the bag.”

“There’s hundreds of them popping up,” she said.

When Sara noted much of that happened under Ambrose’s watch, the top Tory said that while her party always expected police to “do their jobs,” the City of Vancouver opted to regulate dispensaries on a municipal level — a decision she blasted publicly last June.

While repeating her concern that legalizing pot normalizes the drug, Ambrose conceded that a large faction of Canadians — “that are mostly adults, to be frank” — want access to marijuana for recreational purposes. Those voters supported Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the last campaign and were a “strong force” in places such as Vancouver.

Now, Ambrose wants to see what Trudeau’s government plans to do to control the substance.

“The sooner they can move on that, the better to protect kids.”

“Whatever (the regulations) look like, Prime Minister Trudeau has said he’s going to keep pot out of the hands of children. So, good,” she said. “That’s what we need to do.

“I hope that the faster they move on this the better because the proliferation of pot dispensaries is quite large. It’s moved now, not just in Vancouver but across the country and they’re unregulated. So, the sooner they can move on that, the better to protect kids.”

Trudeau has long maintained that legalizing and regulating the drug will do more to keep it away from children — a position that was repeatedly blasted by Tories in attack ads.

Listen to Ambrose’s full interview below:

Ambrose said she was ‘skeptical’ Liberals could protect kids

In an interview with The Huffington Post Canada last month, Ambrose expressed doubt that legalizing pot could help keep the drug away from young people.

“That’s not what we’ve seen in other countries,” she said. “As the Liberals move forward, our big push with them will be to make sure that if they’re going to legalize that they implement the regulation in a way that protects children. And I’m very skeptical that they are going to be able to do that.”

Ambrose’s remarks this week also conflict with what she said in the House of Commons months ago.

In June, then-Vancouver Tory MP Wai Young — who was defeated last fall by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan — rose during question period to lament that there were “even more marijuana stores in Vancouver” than ever before. Young asked for an update on health risks of smoking pot.

In her response, Ambrose pointed to comments from a past president of the Canadian Medical Association that marijuana poses lasting health effects for youth. She suggested only the Tories were looking out for kids.

“While the Liberal leader and the New Democrats support making marijuana use an everyday, normal activity and having it available in storefronts like Starbucks, our government will continue to protect young people from marijuana,” she said.

Harper on campaign trail: Pot ‘infinitely worse’ than tobacco

While pot was not as big of an issue in the last campaign that some predicted, Harper sparked headlines in October when he said marijuana was “infinitely worse” than tobacco.

A radio interview just days before the vote ultimately turned testy when the former Tory leader was repeatedly asked to provide proof to back up that claim. Harper pointed to “science.”

Tories also released controversial ads targeting Chinese and Punjabi-speaking voters that alleged Trudeau’s Liberals wanted to sell pot sold to children.

Liberals stated in their speech from the throne last month the new government would, as promised, “legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana.”

Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, now an MP for Scarborough and parliamentary secretary for the minister of justice, has been tapped to handle the contentious file.

At first it looked like the ultimate flip-flop: the very health minister who ran controversial anti-marijuana ads backs legalization after taking over her routed right-wing party.

But that’s not what interim Conservative Party leader Rona Ambrose said on a Vancouver radio station Wednesday, despite what social media and misleadingheadlines may suggest. What Ambrose actually did on CKNW New Talk was defend her former government’s (widely mocked) ads about pot and kids’ brains and urge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to “take it slow” on legalization while moving quickly to regulate the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries across the country.

Host Simi Sara started off by asking Ambrose if she thought the party’s opposition to marijuana legalization hurt them in October’s election, especially in pot-friendly places like Vancouver.

“I don’t think so because my message was always about the public health impact on children,” Ambrose said, before referring back to her work as health minister to heavily regulate medical pot, while also warning against recreational use. “As Health Minister at the time, I was really concerned about the infiltration of these dispensaries that are not regulated, there was evidence that they were selling to kids… The product itself is in no way regulated or checked by anyone so no one know what’s in it. We’re still in that situation and that’s a concern.

The new government will legalize marijuana, we know that.

“The new government will legalize marijuana, we know that. My concern is the cat’s out of the bag with the dispensaries, there’s hundreds of them popping up they’re not regulated. I don’t know how they’re going to get that back (under control).”

She also blamed municipal government’s like Vancouver for the growing number of dispensaries, as she said the “decision was made locally” to allow them to open and for police to ignore their spread. She also urged Trudeau to continue to spread the public health gospel that marijuana is dangerous for developing brains.

So, no, Ambrose didn’t all of a sudden learn to stop worrying and love the bong.

In many ways she clung to previous misinformation the Conservatives spread — while many medical pot dispensaries, especially in B.C., operate in a legal grey zone, there’s little evidence they sell to kids. And she defended anti-pot ads even some doctors thought were too political.

“We invested $7 million in a public health campaign. We did TV ads, we did radio ads, print ads. They were all vetted by the scientific community and the medical community. A number of medical associations helped provide the idea and the input for the ad campaign and it was all focused on kids and the impact on the developing brain and potentially cognitive and psychological problems that could happen,” Ambrose said, apparently forgetting several prominent medical groups — the College of Family Physicians of Canada, Canadian Medical Association and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada — refused to back the Health Canada ads because they were deemed too political.

So what did Ambrose say that has so many spinning her words into disjointed pro-pot policy? She acknowledged that pot legalization is all but inevitable, so instead of beating the criminalization drum, she urged health promotion instead.

I say to the government, make sure you take it slow, that you got the right public health measures in place, the right restrictions to keep it away from kids.

“I say to the government, make sure you take it slow, that you got the right public health measures in place, the right restrictions to keep it away from kids. It’s a tough thing to do when you legalize something, because when you legalize, you normalize it and then it becomes more acceptable and more available,” she said the Canadian Paediatric Society has repeatedly warned against pot’s effect on growing brains. “We need to have a really strong public health campaign aimed at kids if this moves ahead.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of marijuana legalization. But near the end of the interview, Ambrose showed the party is listening to the growing number of adults who believe pot can be regulated like alcohol, again without fully backing full-blown legalization.

“I think the bottom line is there’s a huge faction of people in this country, that are mostly adults to be frank, that want access to pot and they want it legalized and it’s for recreational purposes and that’s the reality,” Ambrose said. “When you talk about legalization my concern was to move that quickly in that direction without a proper regulatory regime around recreational marijuana would mean that that would be something that would be more accessible to kids. We don’t know what the government is going to do; we don’t have any sense what the regulations will look like, but whatever they look like Prime Minister Trudeau has said he’s going to keep pot out of the hands of children is god, that’s what we need to do.”

And that’s when we get to the key phrase, where Ambrose urges swift action to protect innocent minds from the cannabis corruption:

“I hope that the faster they move on this the better because the proliferation of pot dispensaries is quite large — it’s moved now not just in Vancouver but across the country — and they’re unregulated, so the sooner they move on that the better to protect kids,” she said.

So why is everyone freaking out that this is yet another Conservative party about face since the election? Because Ambrose has been making the rounds trying to remake the party in a softer, gentler more open-minded image than when Stephen Harper was in control. But it’s also the effect of moving to opposition, where a party’s role is to probe the government, even on issues it may have put into motion. Most recently, the Tories have been criticized for changing their tune on a massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia, something Ambrose addressed — alongside questions of whether her marijuana stance has changed — head on:

“It’s not so much that you’re changing you’re position. but as a position changes you have to ask the government those tough questions, whether it’s the human rights record of Saudi Arabia (or another issues), that’s the obligation of the opposition. Mr. Trudeau has made a commitment to transparency and we’ve made a commitment to Canadians to ask tough substantive questions and on the issue of Saudi Arabia and the human rights record, we’ve asked him to be clear about what this government’s position is. It is a new government, so obviously we have an obligation to ask them where they stand on these issues.”

The Liberal federal government is facing pressure from an unlikely source to quickly legalize and regulate the sale of recreational marijuana: the Conservative Party of Canada.

At a news conference on Monday, interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said the growing number of illegal dispensaries is increasing the risk that children will get access to pot. As such, she said, the pressure is on the government to present and implement its plan to legalize marijuana.

“[Prime Minister Justin Trudeau] said he will legalize writ large, which will make pot much more available, but he will protect kids, he will keep it out of the hands of kids,” Ms. Ambrose said. “I think he needs to move quickly on that, because we already know that this is happening across the country.”

The previous Conservative government, including Ms. Ambrose in her role as the health minister, was a strong opponent of the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes. Even in terms of medical marijuana, the Tories were openly skeptical of the drug’s potential health benefits and enacted strict regulations that limited its access to the population.

However, Ms. Ambrose said the Liberal election victory on Oct. 19 was widely interpreted as the arrival of a new marijuana regime in Canada.

“When this new government was elected, there was a clear message sent that marijuana is legal, marijuana will be legal,” she said. “The problem there is it sent a message to all of those who want to profit from this industry. We see the proliferation of pot dispensaries all across the country, and the concern there is that there is some evidence that some of them are selling to young people.”

Ms. Ambrose added that her position on marijuana has not changed. “I’ve never been in favour of the legalization writ large, the way Mr. Trudeau envisions this industry moving forward, but it’s incumbent on him to come forward with a plan to show how he will keep it out of the hands of kids,” she said.

On July 31, 2015, when she was still the minister of health, Ms. Ambrose ordered a crackdown on groups that illegally advertise marijuana and restated the Conservative Party’s pledge to keep storefront dispensaries illegal.

“Today, I directed Health Canada to create a task force to crack down on illegal marijuana advertising,” she said in a statement just a few days before the election was called. “This task force will ensure that those who engage in such illegal activities are stopped, and should these illegal activities continue, promptly referred to law enforcement.”