Ontario’s move to license eight REC stores in First Nations may the beginning of a broader attempt to limit unlicensed stores in those communities, though any aggressive move in that direction threatens complex jurisdictional challenges. First Nations have no governance relationship with provinces and some resist any intrusion from provincial governments, laws, and police.
- A few First Nations leaders hailed the opportunity for legal REC on their land.
CBC Thunder Bay - All REC retailers must buy provincially and federally taxed legal REC, but First Nations do not pay taxes and many refuse to collect taxes on behalf of any government except their own.
- Last month, Ontario Chiefs voted to control all cannabis within First Nations. AFN Ontario Regional Chief RoseAnne Archibald said, “Limiting those number of stores is contrary to what we call community sovereignty.”
Global
Quick Hits
- Out of 257 inspections of MED LP facilities in the fiscal year ending in March 2018, Health Canada gave “noncompliant” ratings to three producers, as well as two “critical observations,” and 63 “major observations.”
MJ Biz Daily - The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, which sells REC through its liquor stores (the only province to do so), requested $3M in additional funding to prepare its liquor stores for edibles. Last year the agency retrofitted 12 stores to sell RECbut this year they’ll be renovated to prepare for legalization 2.0 products.
The Star - Global News reporter Patrick Cain reported employees at a Sackville Cannabis NB store said they get border-crossing customers from Nova Scotia, where cannabis is sold through the NSLC. They “want to talk to people who work in a dedicated cannabis store, as opposed to people who are mostly liquor store clerks who now sometimes also sell weed,” Cain said.
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