With no cannabis revenue sharing deal in sight between the province and UBCM an industry insider says that spells trouble for B.C. and especially local governments

Finance minister Carole James seems to be ruling out a deal because she says so far costs are outweighing any revenues.

Hexo Corporation Vice President Terry Lake says that makes no sense.

“I think it is crazy. The fact is there is no revenue coming because they are not approving licenses. We have got people in Kamloops who are spending five or $6,000 a month holding up a lease that they can’t use because the government is so slow at approving licenses. So of course the revenue is not coming in.”

Lake says the impacts of not reaching a deal with local governments on cannabis tax revenues is having a ripple effect.

“More and more communities in B.C. of all places are saying no to cannabis, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. What we hear is that local governments are upset that the province is not sharing more revenue with them and so until that happens they are basically shutting out cannabis. That is a problem in British Columbia that needs to be resolved.”

Lake says there is a pot of money there.

“The federal government gave up a whole bunch of money to the provinces. The intention was that some of that would go down to the local government that has to do a lot of regulation of bylaws and enforcement to cover those costs. That isn’t happening in B.C. and that is a huge problem. We are hoping, and I have indicated to UBCM President Arjun Singh, that this needs to be discussed at the UBCM conference in September.”

Last fall the federal government agreed to give the provinces and territories 75% of all cannabis tax revenues.

B.C. entered into talks with the Union of BC Municipalities in February to negotiate a cost sharing formula to split cannabis tax revenues with municipalities.