Delayed Cannabis Legalization Would Have Significant Impact on Business

Partner Eileen McMahon has told The Lawyer’s Daily that if bill C-45 was to be delayed there would be significant impacts on Canadian businesses who have been preparing for a 2018 legalization.

The article writes about senate committees proposing substantial changes to the cannabis bill, which includes delaying legalization for up to one year.

Other changes include “reserving “at least 20 per cent” of cannabis production licences to Indigenous groups and making the proposed criminal prohibitions and penalties less onerous for youths.”

Eileen told The Lawyer’s Daily that as business are replying on legalization this year, if that was to be delayed by 12 months, the knock-on effects would be significant.

“Much of the activity in the industry, such as expanding growing operations; ramping up production; mergers; acquisitions; stock market activity; cross-border deals; financing and investment; ring-fencing, etc., has largely been centred around the expectation that legalization would happen this year,” she said.

Eileen also said international opportunities could also be affected if legalization is delayed.

“Many companies that were expecting to start commercial activities in Canada this year have already started looking towards international commercial opportunities, and this delay would be likely to impact those considerations as well,” she said.

“The markets would react.”

Eileen and the Torys cannabis group have written extensively on the topic. You can read some of their thoughts on the Emerging Trends in the Cannabis Industry page.

You can learn more about Torys’ cannabis work by heading to the practice page.