Mayor and council of the City of Quesnel developed, discussed and passed a response to provincial government for policy considerations for a regulatory framework for non-medical cannabis in British Columbia at its Oct. 24 meeting.
Following the 2015 federal election, the Liberal government started working on its campaign promise to legalize cannabis across the country.
The revision of Cannabis Act and the Criminal Code are underway and it’s expected these bills will be passed by July 2018.
The provinces will be responsible for the regulation of the distribution and sale of cannabis.
Of great concern for the City are the extra costs for the increased RCMP enforcement and the extra regulatory changes for the city.
Council also talked about the need for revenue sharing and the necessity of the upper levels of government picking up the bill for the extra enforcement and regulatory cost.
Mayor Bob Simpson noted the province didn’t ask how much revenue local governments want back in their consultation.
“If we understand this as fine revenue coming back, then we can advise we want the fine revenue coming back to the community for our policing efforts.”
Following last week’s Cariboo Regional District board meeting, he says it would be important for council to say if there is any revenue realized from the new marijuana use changes, “there has to be some kind of direct payback to the communities because we’re going to bear the brunt during the transition period and then on.”
He then asked if council would like to make a recommendation on the issue even though the province didn’t ask for it.”
Councillor Ron Paull said he thought council should be more specific than just stating it wants a piece of the revenue.
“When it shakes right down, the federal and provincial governments have some work to put this all through, but beyond the stroke of a pen, the work is going to fall to the municipalities and local governments.”
He added local government are going to bear the brunt of the costs through enforcement, building inspection, complaints about use in a public place, etc.
“I don’t think we should be complacent … I think we should be assertive.”
The mayor said he didn’t want to put a figure to the amount because the federal government is going to have to figure out the tax component because Ottawa is going to try to generate some revenue.
Coun. Ed Coleman suggested the profit sharing should be based on one-third each for the federal, provincial and local governments.
“To me, it’s two things. It’s the sharing of revenues, but it’s also they should cover our incremental costs as well.”
Mayor Simpson suggested the motion could be worded on the lines that the incremental costs and revenue sharing being proportional to the additional burden being placed on local government.
“We really don’t know what we want, but we want some money coming our way to cover off what this is going to cost us.”
Coleman reiterated he wanted to ensure the motion to read a revenue-sharing of one-third each, but in addition to that any additional incremental costs that can be identified would be funded separately.
“There is no model here of those businesses [medical and non-medical] being structured that would be legal under the current system,” Simpson noted.
“They’re not sourcing from legal distributors. They’re sourcing from illegal distribution sources.
“They’re not acting under any model here that they would be sanctioned as retailers.”
He asked for a motion from council that the provincial and federal governments equip municipalities with stronger tools to extinguish the illegal retailing distribution system that’s going to build around whatever model they come with.
Coun. Scott Elliott said one of the options was municipalities could in the future look at setting up private retailers, but some [private retailers] have set up illegal outlets already.
“This is a non-starter. I think that’s what they’re hoping for and I don’t think we should play into that.”
Said Simpson: “As we have encountered, our business tool or our fining tool – nothing seems to work to extinguish it. The RCMP is basically being asked to not engage because there’s a whole bunch of court cases to learn where the court precedents are.
“It’s a real mess and I don’t see any of this disappearing. The cleanest model is to have government retail, but if that’s the model we choose, they have to extinguish the illegal activity and then they can look at private sector after that.”
The motion was carried.
Read the policy recommendations in the Nov. 1 edition of the Quesnel Cariboo Observer.
