The President of the Union of BC Municipalities says there is a new timeline to announce a possible legal cannabis revenue sharing deal with local governments.

Arjun Singh says he was hoping the announcement would come in last week’s provincial budget but things are now on a different track due to some outstanding information.

“The province shared with us that they have not received a cheque themselves with federal excise tax revenues. So when they get that revenue in we will have a high level discussion about what the costs are. We want to have a discussion about after those costs are recouped what is the revenue sharing going forward?”

What is the new timeline?

“I think it is still not necessarily set in stone.”

Singh says local governments do not want to be stuck covering legal cannabis costs.

“If there is profit to be derived for government through this we feel a share should come back to local governments. That is what we are working. In the next couple of months there will be some excise tax revenue coming back from the federal government to the province and then we will have a more solid discussion at that point.”

He says essentially both sides are waiting to get a sense of how much marijuana tax revenue there is before deciding how to split it up.